Eg some military spec velcro is weaker as it needs to pull apart much more quietly. So it is good at doing that job, but bit if you need it in ace if normal velcro and want to use a normal amount.
I haven't worked for the government for 6 or so years, but the last box of skillcraft I had maybe 3 worked out of the box, and not one made it through annotating a paper. It was so bad that I bought a box of cheap store brand ones for myself so I could take notes.
The newer all plastic models are far more similar to what those used to be and I have a few going on 8 or 9 years of off and on use that are great.
Edit: sorry the slave master approved term is a "sheltered workshop"
If you feel strongly that people who are blind should not be able to work even if they want to work; please consider writing a blog post and posting on HN.
> Nope. Paul Fisher at the Fisher Pen Company had already been working on a pressurized pen. That said, it would never have reached the heights it did, in orbit or in popularity, without NASA’s testing. [...]
> When NASA reached out to him looking for a pen that didn’t require gravity, he knew this pressurized ink cartridge could be just the thing – if he could solve the leaks. With NASA’s interest spurring him on, he finally succeeded when he added resin to the ink to make it “thixotropic” – almost solid until friction with the ball at the point of the pen liquefied it. He called the result the AG7, for anti-gravity, and sent several to NASA. [1]
[1]: https://spinoff.nasa.gov/space-pens
Postscript regarding the 'cosmonauts just used a pencil' meme -- regular pencils have a tendency to make graphite dust which is problematic in a zero gravity science situation. Thus, the Soviets used grease pencils in the early days, which were problematic for other reasons, experimented with mechanical pencils just like the US, and once 'space pens' were available they switched to them as well, shortly after the US. [2]
Uniball now has disposable pressurized pens(Power tank) which is awesome.