I read a book recently on algorithms, and it discussed a category of problems called “optimal stopping”. Optimal stopping is all about finding out when to, well, stop in a pursuit.
How many candidates do you interview for a job before making an offer? How many new restaurants in a city do you try before… Continue reading
Tag: urushi
Spend any time on pen blogs and forums and you’ll find someone mention “Nakaya” and “grail pen” in the same sentence. There’s something about this Japanese brand that really gets people by the soul and won’t let go, in a way that Sailor and Pilot don’t.
Maybe it’s the mystique around the brand itself: staffed… Continue reading
As is my way, I went to Japan with an exhaustively researched shopping list. I knew which items I wanted to investigate, I knew where was likely to stock them, and I knew roughly how much they were going to cost. But I still gave myself a few surprises.
Inks
Tokyo is the home of… Continue reading
I confess: I started out biased against the Platinum Izumo, based on pictures on the internet and five minutes handling one in a pen shop.
To me, the design seemed just plain oddball. Take a pen that looks lovely capped: almost dolphin-like curves, beautiful urushi lacquer, strong proportions.
Take the cap off and what the… Continue reading