so i spent the whole saturday trying to get a clean line with my speedball 2000 nib on the new copperplate 0.8mm ink (the 2023 batch). every time i pull a stroke it just flubs out, like the tip's not catching. i even pre‑wet the nib with a few drops of sumi to no avail. i thought maybe it's the nib tension, but i already adjusted it to 3.2 on the micrometer (the spec says 3.0‑3.5). i even tried a fresh 0.5mm nikko nib and same drama. i swear the paper's fine—tested with a 0.6mm copperplate nib from my dad's old set, perfect flow. anyone else had this issue with the speedball 2000? or is it just me being a perfectionist with my strokes? tbh i was hoping the new nib would finally give me that buttery line i brag about in my portfolio, but now i'm stuck wondering if i need to upgrade to a pilot parallel or just accept the flaw.

so im wondering whats the ideal temp for roasting coffee beans tbh i see ppl saying anywhere from 400 to 450 degrees fahrenheit but like whats the actual diff

I've been using a G. G. W‑23 pointed nib for a few weeks now – love the flexibility, but I hit a weird snag. When I write light‑handed strokes (like the initial strokes of a kanji or a delicate copperplate entry) on 100 g/m² rice paper soaked in a light wash of water, the nib sometimes just skips or "flutters" instead of laying a smooth line.

• I'm using a 0.5 ml bottle of traditional iron‑gall ink (exactly the 16 % tannic acid blend from the 1870s formula).
• My grip is the standard tripod, pressure under 10 g (I even timed it with a small force gauge).
• The nib is freshly split, not broken, and I flushed it with distilled water each night.

I tried switching to a broader nib (G. G. F‑12) and the issue disappears, but I really want the crispness of the W‑23 for fine script. Same thing happens on smooth Bristol paper – just the light pressure is the trigger.

Anyone else experience this "light‑pressure skip"? Is it something about the ink’s viscosity on absorbent substrates, or maybe the nib's tines need a little more tempering? Any tips (like a quick dip in a diluted gum Arabic rinse or a slight rub‑out with a hard pencil) would be amazing. I'm kinda stuck and would love some community insight.

Thanks in advance!

idk tbh its wild how bad these dna sites are at basic stuff my grandma was polish and her surname had like 3 accents now ancestry.com lists it as 'kowalski' but the actual name is 'kowalski' with a line over the w they just straight up removed the diacritic im not a linguist but even i know that matters for polish names theyre charging me $120/yr to get my family tree wrong anyone else deal with this garbage rn

just tried a fresh sumi brush set and the first stroke bunched up, ink feathered way past the line tbh kinda annoying lol rn cleaning everything again

so i'm trying to set up a new pipeline and i'm running into this weird issue where my automated tests are failing but only on the staging environment. locally everything works fine. i've checked the config files and they're identical. anyone else have this problem? feels like i'm going crazy

I'm looking for some recommendations on DevOps tools that are suitable for small teams We're talking less than 10 people, and we need something that's gonna make our lives easier, not more complicated. I've been using some of the bigger names, but they're just too bloated for our needs. Anyone have any experience with more lightweight options? What's worked for you?

I've been practicing calligraphy for a while now and I just realized I've been holding my nib wrong the entire time. I mean, it's not like it's been obvious or anything, but I was looking at some videos and I saw how they were holding it and I'm like, what have I been doing? It's no wonder my lines have been so shaky. I guess you could say I've been winging it. I'm kinda embarrassed about it, but at least I know now. Anyone else ever have a moment like that?

I'm really attached to my nikko g nib 🙂. been practicing with it for months. maybe someone has a favorite ink or paper combo they wanna share?