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

[A Smug Dill]

The thing people don't realize is that the Internet as a whole is a wiki.

Well, a large number of information resources on the Internet is that, but not all. I'm grateful for around-the-clock, immediate and free access to every piece of federal and state legislation using my computer, tablet device or mobile handset anywhere I go, and I wouldn't say those information resources are wikis.

 

And no two "authorities" agreed. On anything. It drove her nuts.

The funny thing I've observed, in a good many instances in social media including online discussion forums, is that sometimes users (in every sense of the word) sometimes just don't like either an "authority" (such as a telco, being the "authority" on its retail offers, service terms and conditions, and company policies) itself, or what an "authority" has stated definitively (such as the Australian Border Force's web pages on tax liability,applicable duties and processing fees on online shopping and importing consumer goods by post), and so turn to "the Internet" — home of crowd-sourced disgruntlement, impertinence and misinformation — as their first port of call for "answers" to sit better with their personal values and preferences, instead of taking up the query with the "customer"-facing teams at the "authorities" in question.

[ParramattaPaul]

As someone who 'inhabited' the library's reference section throughout my secondary and tertiary education, I will say that the internet, and like the reference section, it is a 'tool'. Like all tools, the internet provides its user the means to do work.

 

For some, that 'work' is socially motivated. Their internet activity may bepredominently Facebook, etc. For others, it may be a source of entertainment, hence U-tube, etc. Yet others use it to share common interests such as (just off the top of my head) fountain pens and ink.

 

Then there are some, like me, who use it to access the vast amounts of information and data that the internet has made available to anyone with a capacity for genuine research and an ability to sort the 'wheat from the chaff'. For instance, I can research everything thing from ISO engineering drawing standards to St Thomas 'Summa Theologica', fly fishing knots to scone recipes. I can,via various online sources, read books that have been out of print for decades that would require a king's ransom to purchase IF one could be found.

 

The point is that while the internet seems to have a life of its own, it is an inanimate requiring that actions of an animate -- that's you, me, and bloke down the road -- the user. It is the interest, the use,and the skills of the user that determines the value and quality of the internet -- gives it the 'life' it seems to have.

[ParramattaPaul]

I should add that many of the resources in libraries that were available to those decades ago were written and published long before I was born. The age of the material they contained was more frequently than not 'up to date'.

[Brianm_14]

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.

I fully understand what you are saying.

 

I do not disagree at all with the point that individuals can acquire information from the Internet at a fantastic rate. I appreciate and enjoy that aspect daily. But the pure growth of human knowledge, knowledge we have acquired as a species, simply has not been acccelerated anywhere near the degree predicted in the earlier years of Internet-worship. It just hasn't happened. The Internet cannot even be compared to the horizon-expanding instruments, such as the telescope, microscope, or spectroscope; these opened new worlds to our minds.

 

This isn't about sharing information (a success story for the Internet) or making information available to individuals; it is about exploring the world and creating new knowledge for humanity as a whole. In that, the Internet gets a D+ at best. Maybe an F. We still plod along, and other developments, some of which I listed, allowed us triumphs such as the Human Genome Project.

[A Smug Dill]

I fully understand what you are saying.

This isn't about sharing information (a success story for the Internet) or making information available to individuals; it is about exploring the world and creating new knowledge for humanity as a whole. In that, the Internet gets a D+ at best. Maybe an F.

The Internet is a means of communication, not a form of artificial intelligence, so it was never going to do the exploring or creating on the human race's behalf to expand our knowledge horizons. Whether access to more information more quickly is going to inspire more humans to get out of their comfort zone and do something useful (to the species) is a different matter.

[Brianm_14]

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.

A very good point, one that can be futher explored by trying to find out a scientifically-based recommendation concerning how many eggs are heathy to include in the diet per week. If you begin with a prejudice of "one" or "six" it doesn't matter; you are likely to quickly find a seemingly reliable source to back you up! I see this confirmation bias in the references cited every term by my university students. To a great degree, as a wiki, the Internet also churns knowledge and greatly fluffs and increases the volume, as sources cite other Internet sources.

 

It resembles the phenomenon of "empty magnification" on a poorly set-up microscope, where magnification increases without a corresponding gain in resolution. Things are seen as bigger, but in no greater detail.

[wallylynn]

how many eggs are heathy to include in the diet per week. If you begin with a prejudice of "one" or "six" it doesn't matter; you are likely to quickly find a seemingly reliable source to back you up!

that's because they're all correct. Noneoof them are wrong. what's the scientific definition of 'healthy'? There isn't. It's subjective, not definitive. It's all Grey zone. It's probabilistic, and the human brain is not made to compute probability. Casino probability is hard enough, never mind general relatively, don't even start with quantum mechanics. Probability means relinquishing control, and people abhor that. Our puny brains just can't deal with it.

[Brianm_14]

The Internet is a means of communication, not a form of artificial intelligence, so it was never going to do the exploring or creating on the human race's behalf to expand our knowledge horizons. Whether access to more information more quickly is going to inspire more humans to get out of their comfort zone and do something useful (to the species) is a different matter.

I disagree. The Internet was early on envisioned as a means of increasing the human potential for discovery by linking us together; there were some serious people suggesting it was Fr. Teilhard de Chardin's Omega Point realized, that the old paleontologist had forseen just such a development. Such assine suggestions have been buried and hidden away.

 

I do agree tht the Internet is a form of communication. I do not agree that it was historically always viewed as merely that, and traces of the earlier visions of Internet Grandeur still remain. "Multitasking" might be one of them. There's a fallacy that kills tens of thousand of motorists every year. What rubbish!

[silverlifter]

The Internet was envisaged "as a means of increasing the human potential for discovery" only insofar as it was created by and for scientists, and that is their raison d'être. Backporting mysticism, as in the de Chardin claim or the absurd dreams of the Singularity, is just one example of the boosterism associated with the technology. The dotcom boom, Zuckerberg's juvenile prattlings and blockchain are others.

 

It's all technology: GIGO applies universally. So, unfortunately, does Gresham's Law.

Edited September 7, 2019 by silverlifter

[Arkanabar]

<snip> 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.

 

 

One of my prize possessions is a 2007 Clark's Ink Sampler. At that time, Greg Clark had amassed a collection of at least 400 distinct inks.

[A Smug Dill]

I disagree. The Internet was early on envisioned as a means of increasing the human potential for discovery by linking us together;

I'd say the potential has indeed increased vastly. So what?

 

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.

Now you're conflating two things — potential and realisation — that are only joined by a leap of faith.

 

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).

_...‹snip›...

If the same visionaries you mentioned above have failed or neglected to either consider or note the Internet's parallel potential (which is increasingly being realised) for that second group of activities, that's their oversight for which nobody else is to blame.

 

So, unfortunately, does Gresham's Law.

 

But what specifically is the thing, which is being circulated on the Internet, that its denizens are "forced" to accept at face value categorically by external forces? It is still possible to the individual information consumer to assess the validity of information and ideas being circulated, without limiting oneself entirely to the use of a closed system in which it is theoretically possible for every source to be corrupted in a way to corroborate an untruth.

 

This isn't about sharing information (a success story for the Internet) or making information available to individuals; it is about exploring the world and creating new knowledge for humanity as a whole.

People — our peers and equals in an information dissemination and access regime that the Internet has largely flattened and from which entry barriers have been greatly lowered, if not altogether removed — have made, and are continually making, choices every day as to what they want to see and how they want to proceed. They alone can decide which potential(s) they want to realise or exploit.

 

So, is "the Internet" the entity to which you're alluding, if you take human users out of the scope? If so, then my earlier point stands; the Internet is not a form of artificial intelligence, and will not do the thinking or knowledge creation on our behalf. On the other hand, if "the Internet" must be considered to include its human users, then in effect "it" has spoken; how "it" behaves was never up to the visionaries, scientists or humanists, who obviously just got it wrong about human nature and its part to play as an inherent aspect of this entity you refer to as "the Internet".

[Brianm_14]

Nicely said, Silverlifter! Nothing I wrote was meant to disagree with your points.

 

Excellent point of fact, Ankanabar. Catalogs and "samplers" are indeed windows into the past. I well recall the diversity of inks growing. In the early 1980s, in VT, I was lucky to find Sheaffer's AND Waterman's at the local stationer's store in Montpelier. Two brands, three colors. I felt like Crusoe, when he discovered Friday's footprints. The store, alas, failed in the effort to order more colors.

 

By the 2000s, inks were experiencing a resurgence like that of beers and ales in terms of variety. Ain't life grand?

[wallylynn]

just this week, the (a?) solution to (x^3 + y^3 +z^3 = 42) was discovered. Who gets credit? The mathematician? The internet? The people connected to the internet? Is this even a new discovery? Or just more details to something old?

[welch]

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.

 

 

Richard's advice seems good, and ten years is not so long, and, of course, Richard keeps up: his "Nib Notes" arrives in my email every month or so. Furthermore, ten years ago there were far more than five ink manufacturers, and some made fifty or a hundred different inks. Without searching for obscure ink-makers, I remember Art Brown's offering Noodlers, Diamine, Iroshizuku, Sailor, Pelikan Edelstein, DeAtrimentis, J.Herbin, plus the less exotic inks from pen-makers.

 

I picked up two underlying ideas from Richard:

 

- Be careful of heavily saturated inks, especially in pens with rubber sacs. I still use saturated inks sometimes...there's no law...just a warning to be on the lookout

 

- Be careful of inks with weird additives. I avoid glitter, and don't see a need for ink that defeats winter or that, supposedly, lubricates a piston.

 

Maybe there were only a handful of ink makers going back forty years, and I remember that in the mid-60's we could only choose Sheaffer or Parker inks -- in drug stores and college bookstores where we bought school supplies. As Brian_m says, that was the way of things until the late '90s...which was more than ten years ago.

Edited September 14, 2019 by welch

[IThinkIHaveAProblem]

 

...the definition of a wiki, as many thoughtful people will testify, is a self-corrupting database.

 

Love this!

[tadas]

 

It's all technology: GIGO applies universally. So, unfortunately, does Gresham's Law.

 

Unfortunately, on the internet GIGO means "Garbage In, Gospel Out".

[Algester]

I would actually want someone to counter the findings on this thread is all about

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/339505-some-ink-ph-levels-available-in-japan-but-only-a-selected-222-few/?do=findComment&comment=4104476

 

if we think that most blue black inks are actually more acidic that Baystate Blue whats in Baystate blue thats caused a lot of issues for it

Edited September 17, 2019 by Algester

[txomsy]

That BSB is basic, not acid.

 

When mixed with an acidic ink it will form a salt and precipitate. And because it is basic, typical ink cleaning agents will not work (bleach does, OTOH), and may react with some components that expect an acidic ink.

 

 

As for the Internet, having deployed one of the first web severs in the World, I can tell you: the WWW is NOT the Internet. The WWW was devised as a way to speed up communication between scientists.

 

Communication is only a transfer of information between a source and a destination. It is not about content.

 

Corollary: anything you could do before the WWW, you can do now exactly the same, only faster and more efficiently. Inform. Lie. Gossip. Etc.

 

As for intelligence in "the Internet". That was Google's model, a lot later: for decades they promoted that instead of searching you used it to make questions, the idea being that their system would learn to give the appropriate answers...

 

Much like communication, someone makes questions, something makes a decision. One needs to learn to make questions (what's the question whose answer is 42?). But even so, one must communicate the question to the decider unambiguously (and most of the time we don't even know what we are looking for). And the decider must base its answer on something assuming what the asker probably intended to ask. And you need to interpret the response. Communications again.

 

Therein lies the conundrum: Google's algorithms are (simplifying) "popularity based" in the hope that most people will look for the same answer, so they look at the links you choose after asking and promote those. I remember trying to find some information on Quantum Mechanics when 007 Quantum of Solace was published... grrr. Yeah, they are not that simple now, but the same limitation applies: there is no way Google will really know what's actually on your head. They try, based on your historical record of searches, but it works both ways, if as a scientist I try to look up some trivia, I'll be doomed for a while.

 

Summarizing: most people confound Google searches with the WWW and that with the Internet. It is irrelevant, as even if it were so, expecting a computer to read your mind and giving you a correct answer is plainly naïve. Understandable, as for most with simple, technical, unambiguous questions it works well, but unreal all the same.

 

 

As for Richard's site: in a world that changes continuously, it is important to set context. We realized that early in the 90's and made a point of always dating any web page so readers would know when it was written. It's no that Richard has ever disseminated wrong information: it was accurate when written and the date available. The world has changed and I can only commend him for the effort in updating his pages, I'll never be able to show enough gratitude for that. All you need to do is, from now on, look at dates and know that the information was accurate at the date of publication, and exercise due criticism.

 

Not for most people? Remember, the WWW was made for scientists and assumed readers would likely have some minimal criterium, or at least know how to read (as opposed to joining letters). Not that there are not a multitude of crazy scientists (me included), mind you.

 

Edited: not to mention, do not forget that everybody (even experts) can make mistakes. Remember to be critical and dispassionate.

Edited September 17, 2019 by txomsy

[A Smug Dill]

As for the Internet, having deployed one of the first web severs in the World, I can tell you: the WWW is NOT the Internet. The WWW was devised as a way to speed up communication between scientists.

The Internet is also a just way to facilitate (electronic) communication, even if you include the actual computers at the nodes of each (wired or wireless) connection. Human users are not part of the Internet, from the perspective of a student of computer science (and I'm really no more than a student with a testamur dated a quarter of a century ago).

 

One could/can run "artificial intelligence" applications and what-not on the computers at each node, but one cannot reasonably assume that those applications are instructed, allowed, or (assuming they're programmed to develop and revise their own decision-making logic over time) "inclined to" pursue knowledge acquisition to enrich human civilisation, or share the results of such with any other connected machine.

 

Edited: not to mention, do not forget that everybody (even experts) can make mistakes. Remember to be critical and dispassionate.

Thank you. It seems not very many users (including, but not limited to, those of discussion forums) that they're just communicating, and both they and fellow users would be better served to regard everything said with a critical and dispassionate approach, especially where what is said is motivated or driven by personal values and sentiments. When someone expresses adoration for a product, or grievances about a particular seller, the first response that could be reasonably and rationally expected from fellows is not empathy or sympathy, but critical examination of what is said through a different "lens" or perspective.

[Algester]

wait BSB is basic with a ph value of 4? assuming what Richard initially wrote is true am I remembering it right I thought higher pH meant more basic and lower means acidic?

Edited September 17, 2019 by Algester