I wish I could just attach a picture, but here’s the sequence:
1. Writing and the pen stops working
2. Scribbling and drawing circles to see if the pen still works. It does.
3. Go back to writing in the spot the pen stopped working. It won’t work!!! ?!
4. Repeat 2 and 3
In: Technology
The ball of the pen is hard steel. Zoomed way in, the paper surface is fuzzy. The ball is gripped by the fuzzy surface enough so that it rolls rather than slides, putting down ink as it rolls.
When the pen “fails” the ball gets jammed and is dragged across the surface without rolling. This creates a smooth hardened packed down “channel” or trough in the paper surface. You can scribble elsewhere and get the ball rolling again on fresh paper, but when you come back to the failure area, the paper surface is already compacted and smoothed out by the dragging ball during the failure. So it has less grip on the ball than fresh fuzzy paper surface. This often results on the ball dragging across this area once again. And the more it happens the surface just gets more and more smooth and compacted so it’s self-worsening once the process begins.
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