
China manufactures a ballpoint pen all by itself (2017) - unnawut
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/01/18/finally-china-manufactures-a-ballpoint-pen-all-by-itself
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michaelbuckbee
Reminds me of Zippers. Ubiquitous and seemingly "simple", making one that is
reliable for years is extremely complicated and there have been similar issues
with Chinese made ones:

[https://slate.com/business/2012/04/ykk-zippers-why-so-
many-d...](https://slate.com/business/2012/04/ykk-zippers-why-so-many-
designers-use-them.html)

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pjc50
The modern version of "I, Pencil". And a useful reminder of how much of the
world depends on surprisingly small single- or dual-source factories producing
tiny but essential components.

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conistonwater
> _This cost the industry $17.3 million a year, according to the China
> National Light Industry Council._

Is this meant to be a lot of money? On the global trade scale? Or on the scale
of China?

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rsynnott
No. That’s why no-one bothered to do anything about it for so long.

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chiph
Article is from January 2017

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unnawut
I didn't realize that when posted it. :( If anyone could help amend the title
with the year...

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jacquesm
Don't worry about it, if it hasn't been posted before and has evergreen value
then posting it like that is fine by me. The 'news' in Hacker News is not to
be taken literally.

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jackfoxy
I have one remaining Cross ballpoint pen and one refill cartridge for it. It
is the only ballpoint pen I have that is worth a damn. Unfortunately I lost
the other 2 Cross pens I've had in my life.

The quality of most ballpoint pens today is deplorable. They leak or blob or
don't write until you scribble a lot.

~~~
kart23
Muji pens are amazing in case you're looking for a recommendation. They're
pretty cheap, but feel great to write with, and I've never had one give up on
me prematurely. Its terrific for people like me who easily lose pens.

~~~
sufehmi
Dang, just visited a mall with Muji shop in it yesterday.

I will come back later to buy some pens

Thanks for the recommendation.

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cmplxconjugate
I also recommend Muji for pens. Also their mechanical pencils are great too.

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downrightmike
Fisher Space Pens are amazing ballpoints that never fail to write smoothly on
the first try. Throw the others out. No connection, just picked one up as a
kid and still use one: [https://www.spacepen.com/](https://www.spacepen.com/)

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green-eclipse
Who knew ballpoint pen tips were so complicated and specialized? Learn
something new everyday.

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dsfyu404ed
They're simple enough.

Churning them out by the millions with sufficiently narrow tolerances to "just
work" and doing so at an attractive price point requires a very finely tuned
manufacturing operation and that kind of thing doesn't happen overnight.

If some despot had all the ball point pen production people rounded up and
shot it would take us while before we figured out how to make ball point pens
in the same volume at the same price again because there's a lot of tribal
knowledge that goes into this sort of thing. This is basically the position
China is in because they want to make ball point pens but they don't have any
ball point pen people.

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krona
After two years and I still can't find a review of this pen? Is it being mass
produced?

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yorwba
It's not a specific pen. Any pen made with steel balls made by TISCO would
qualify. They don't seem to publish statistics. I found a document purporting
to answer questions by investors [1], where their answer to questions like
"did the media attention lead to increased order volume?" or "how large are
the cost savings?" is basically "thank you for your interest, our proposed
standard has already passed national review" without giving specifics. Those
investors probably weren't satisfied with the response.

[1]
[http://tgbx.tisco.com.cn/upload/news/2017031406023863.doc](http://tgbx.tisco.com.cn/upload/news/2017031406023863.doc)

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vnchr
Decries anti-globalism populism, then pursues nationalist goal of an all-China
produced product. Seems like they want to have their cake and eat it too.

~~~
fao_
It's almost like the political thoughs of a leader of most other countries
aside from America, are complex and can't really be effectively summed up in a
short article about the manufacturing of a ballpoint pen.

Also, by 'they' do you mean all of China or just Xi?

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deogeo
> It's almost like the political thoughs of a leader of most other countries
> aside from America, are complex and can't really be effectively summed up in
> a short article

A nice way of saying "hypocrisy is politically useful, especially if you're
not called out on it".

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fao_
Not really. Supporting globalism doesn't implicitly lock you in to believing
that every single item that a country makes should be produced in several
thousand globe-spanning factories.

(Sidenote: globalism is a positive move for the proletariat and means that
strikes are several orders of magintude much more effective (See: Marxism at
the Millennium by Cliff, chapter four))

~~~
deogeo
So when China acts protectionist, this is OK and in tune with free-trade
globalism, because globalism "doesn't lock you in to believing every item
should be produced internationally."

But when they accuse the US of that very same protectionism, this is not
hypocritical, because of complex and nuanced reasons. Do I understand that
correctly?

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fao_
How is producing a single pen using solely the labour of residents of China
'protectionist'.

Can you explain where I have accused the US of being protectionist?

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buboard
> Support great journalism > > We rely on readers like you to uphold a free
> press.

I think their ad copy is getting needlessly manipulative

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conception
With major world leaders regularly decrying the Free press these days it
doesn't seem so needless or hyperbolic.

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_0ffh
I don't think there's really much free press out there anyway. If they're not
beholden to a state actor, then they're mostly beholden to the interests of
their media conglomerate and/or their billionaire owners.

Ed. I want to emphasise that this doesn't necessarily imply bad journalism
overall.

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onyva
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_paper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_paper)

