Ran out into the garden in the morning to catch this spider’s net before it’s destroyed by wind or birds. #LeicaQ3 #RNIFilms #KodakEktar100
Listening to „Cibola Burn“ again (fourth book in the Expanse series). I haven’t read the books in a couple of years, even though they’re very near the top of my favorites list. Just arrived at the first scene Chrisjen Avasarala shows up and I mostly hear her in Shohreh Aghdashloo‘s voice in my head.
Spending the first part of this Saturday installing a set of SKS Bluemels Stripes fenders on one of my bicycles. It would be meditative if it weren’t so nerve-racking because I have to drill holes in both fenders to get them to fit well. 🚲
Whenever Grace Kuhlenschmidt is introduced on The Daily Show I know things are going to get wild. Her particular outrageous/backwater/stupid/innocent style always has me on the verge of collapsing from cringing.
I love (really don’t) how well companies understand passkeys. 🙄
Why yes, please do have me go through 2FA over SMS after I already verified myself using an actually secure method.
Looking at you, eBay and PayPal.
John Oliver is one of the few comedians that I’ve been following for years and years. This interview was a treat. I appreciate understanding his and his team’s approach behind „Last Week Tonight“ better now.
The numbers (heart rate, power) Tadej Pogačar puts out, at what is a recovery or aerobic pace for him, are absolutely unreal. 🚲
What Guillermo del Toro said. I‘ve honestly had it up to here 🖕🏻 with AI. All that these companies do is go after the easiest and flashiest thing and they do so by stealing other people’s work and art. Fuck that. Develop AI to the point of being useful and curing illnesses or GTFO.
33 mm works fine
Cycling journalist Ben Delaney has a really good video up on his youtube channel about gravel bikes that work well as road/endurance bikes and road bikes that can reasonably serve double-duty on gravel. Most of the discussion is around tire clearance and the head tube angle.
I found my sweet spot in the Van Nicholas Yukon Disc. It has a 72° head tube angle and I can easily fit 37 mm wide semi-knobbly 700×35c Schwalbe G-One RS tires, or my current favorite, the trusty old Schwalbe X-One 700×33c CX tires, which give me a bit more clearance and a lot more grip in muddy conditions.
As a side note: I enjoy the recent trend towards “all-road bikes” because many bike manufacturers can simply grab their old audax bike design from the basement, update the geometry slightly, and have something to present as new to consumers.
😖😫😬🫠 When you start massaging your legs with a massage gun and immediately hit the most painful spot on your right thigh.
My view after departing a campsite in Aarburg last week. It was so gloomy. I didn’t edit this image at all. #LeicaQ3 #SOOC
Captured close to Zurich airport during a bikepacking trip last week. #LeicaQ3 #RNIFilms #FujifilmSuperia200
Another bike maintenance first for me: serviced a Specialized Future Shock 2.0 and cleaned the lower headset bearings. Really cool system Specialized built there. 🚲
In an expensive department store with my partner right now. In the swimwear section, specifically. We’re both having a good laugh because a lot of the styles could’ve easily been worn by a female character on TNG. 🖖
The mess that is finding cycling gear for women and smaller people
My partner and I are headed on another bikepacking trip soon and once again we’re reminded that the bike industry has issues catering to women and smaller persons. My partner is 158 cm tall (5' 2") and of a slender build.
Two years ago it was a mess trying to find a gravel bike that fit her and that didn’t have a completely compromised geometry and handling. Out of all the bikes in the market, only roughly 6 models were even worth considering1 and even on those the componentry was sometimes ill-conceived with bars that are too wide, brifters too large, really long cranks (think 170 mm), two instances where the seat post was too long to allow for any kind of proper seat height, and just strange saddles.
This time around she was trying to find a hip bag with
- decent usable volume,
- proper waterproofing,
- an outside attachment point for a bottle or a rain jacket,
- and optionally: the ability to attach it to the handlebars of the bicycle.
We’ve scoured the web to find something and in the end ordered a Chrome Doubletrack Bike Bar Bag (5 l, already discontinued) and a Restrap Utility Hip Pack (6 l). Both bags are well-made (the Restrap definitely taking the cake, though), check all the boxes of features she was looking for … and both do not fit her at all.
On the Chrome bag the strap is way too long, making it impossible to cinch it down around her hip (the waist is completely out of question). If she wanted to use that one, she’d have to modify the strap and shorten it by about 20 cm.
The Restrap can be cinched down to fit her hips at least but the way the straps attach to the body leave the top half of it always dangling and rocking, creating discomfort and instability. Oh and the padding of the hip belt is very oddly cut so it digs into her hips.
The search continues and my hunch is that she’ll have to work with the people from Wizard Works in the UK or someone else for something custom and expensive.
-
For the record: Specialized Diverge Carbon & E5 (aluminium), Cannondale Topstone Carbon & Aluminium, Trek Domane aluminium (and that’s not really a gravel bike), Liv Devote. ↩︎
Looked into over-ear headphones a few weeks ago back. The Dyson ones dropped off my list quickly because they were not reviewed favorably by the audio crowd at large.
I did really enjoy Marques‘s take on these. He always offers an interesting perspective.
Someone was supremely unwilling to go for a long morning walk today. #FujifilmXH2 #SOOC #NostalgicNegative
Really good juxtaposition of opinions on „The Acolyte“ not being renewed for a second season in my feed.
Hörenswerter Beitrag im Deutschlandfunk zu den Gaza-Protesten an Berliner Hochschulen. Noam Petri von der jüdischen Studierendenunion wird hier von Jasper Barenberg interviewt und ordnet die Situation gut ein, wie ich finde.
Ugh. I really need to find a way to filter AI news and posts to things that are actually impactful. Most of the things touted as „innovative“ are just boring bullshit. I‘ve honestly had it up to here with the relentless push towards AI in every aspect of technology.
The music in this short is perfect. #birb
In full agreement with Jason Snell‘s take here: Existential thoughts about Apple’s reliance on Services revenue
Was ist das denn für dunkle Magie? Mein ICE Richtung Chur war heute durchweg überpünktlich. Habe meine Verbindung problemlos erreichbt und sitze am Ziel. Kann mich nicht errinnern, in den letzten drei Jahren einen pünktlichen Zug der DB erlebt zu haben. Irre.
It’s an older video but still oh-so relevant:
Adam Conover: “Why there’s no such thing as a good billionaire”
This article by @nileane@nileane.fr about Meta‘s hostile stance towards LGBT and other marginalized voices on Threads is sad but entirely unsurprising. Hate drives engagement. I‘m really glad for the fediverse and I hope it will continue to grow and start to gain relevance.
Well dang. This perfectly captures why I find Alien so difficult to watch. It’s always felt like an almost too intimate look at the events. Like I’m sitting at a restaurant table with a group of strangers by coincidence, incapable of not listening in on their conversation.
When you bring a musette to carry the baguette you buy, but you forguette and hold it in your hand for half the way back home. 🤦🏻♂️ 🥖
Café cat. This kitty belongs to someone in the neighbourhood but can almost always be found by the café in the town square. Cute thing but also a proper hunter. #LeicaQ3
Finally watched the Robert Pattinson 🦇 Batman movie yesterday. I liked it. Interesting portrayal of Batman, the Riddler and other characters. Not sure why some people are so down on it.
New kit day! A custom frame bag for my road bike.
For my last birthday my family gifted me a custom frame bag by Gramm Tourpacking for Swift Wind (the road bike you see 😉). Took me a while to sit down and prepare the template for Kristin of Gramm and a few emails exchanged with her about the details. Then, last week I finally held it in my hands.
Yesterday I took it out for the first proper outing and it’s great. Fits perfectly, offers a lot of space and still lets me use two 750 ml bottles in the main triangle.
Even had a velcro patch area added up front on both sides of the bag, for extra style points. 😎
Big thanks to the lovely folks at Gramm!
You know what? I‘ve had it with AI. All these companies do is go after the easiest target that is hollowing out creative jobs instead of attempting to solve problems that would actually benefit /waves arms around wildly/ humanity.
I just had a beautiful image in my head of crypto bros getting into physical fights with the AI crowd because AI is slurping up all of the power they need to run their crypto mining rigs.
Habe mir das EM-Spiel Schweiz : Deutschland in einem Biergarten angeschaut.
Ich hatte absolut nicht mehr auf dem Schirm, dass dort natürlich geraucht werden würde.
Es war so unglaublich widerlich. 😶🌫️🤮🤬
Kann gerne auf Public Viewing verzichten, wenn dort geraucht wird.
What an excellent news segment on The Daily Show last night. Equal mix of head-shaking and laughter for me.
Just rewatched the 2021 Dune. I really like this interpretation. Will finally be watching the second part tonight. 🎬
The o2 network in the UK is terrible. I don’t know how they configure their cells but holy wow the latency is high.
Seriously one of my favourite rap songs of the past couple of years: Yah Yah – Eminem, Royce da 5'9, Black Thought, Q-Tip & Denaun
Culling photos from a family wedding. The Leica Q2 did a surprisingly good job getting sharp shots during the dancy-dark-wild-flashy-lights-everywhere part of the evening with its contrast detection AF.
Settings: Face/eye detect, shutter speed of 1/250s, auto ISO up to 6400, auto aperture.
Jordan Klepper is good people. His segments and specials on the Daily Show are excellent. Case in point: Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse: Moscow Tools
Had the Sigma fp l in my hands today. I totally understand what Sigma has tried and mostly succeeded in achieving with this body: a versatile blank slate full of potential. If it had a modern stacked 45 or 60 MP sensor that didn’t suffer from rolling shutter, I would buy it in a heartbeat. 📷
Annoying first world camera choice problem
I’m contemplating switching camera systems (Fujifilm to something full-frame). My main requirements are (in order of importance):
- high-resolution sensor (45+ MP)
- absence of a PASM dial,
- solid ergonomics,
- excellent auto-focus,
- high-resolution electronic viewfinder
- high-quality 35 mm prime lenses available.
The top contenders right now are the Nikon Z8 and the Canon R5 (although I would wait for the rumored Mark II of the latter).
Both cameras have a 45 MP sensor, so that’s a tie and 45 MP on full-frame is good because it’s not too dense, in my opinion. Both cameras do not have a PASM dial, which I appreciate. On the ergonomics side the Nikon Z8 is pretty much perfect; tried it recently and it fits my hands perfectly. The physical controls feel slightly overloaded compared to the Canon R5 (which is no less functional). Reviews have one believe that the autofocus on the Z8 slightly beats the R5 but I think for my uses both are equally sufficient bordering on overkill. The viewfinder on the Z8 is 3.something million dots compared to the 5.76 million dots on the Canon (and the X-H2 I currently shoots with) and the difference is substantial.
35 mm lenses is where they both fall down, based on what I’ve read. If find that confusing. Yes there are excellent, if large zooms that cover this focal length but I’m quite disappointed that both systems apparently don’t offer high-quality 35 mm optics that are sharp at their largest apertures.
What I’d love is a Sony A7C R with the control scheme of a Fujifilm X-E series camera and a viewfinder with at least 3.6 million dots. Because Sony, of all companies has lots of good 35 mm options (both native and from Sigma).
From an ergonomics (grip and control scheme) perspective the Leica SL3 would be my dream camera (not the least because there are reasonably priced Sigma lenses available for it) but the auto-focus, despite being leaps-and-bounds better than on the SL2, can’t hold a candle to the offerings from Nikon, Canon, and Sony, heck, not even compared to Fujifilm.
All of this is a first world problem but it’s still annoying.
The music that’s coming out of this supermarket reminds me eerily of the game „Postal 2 – Running With Scissors“. Oh no.
I love the expression on my dog’s face when she just lays somewhere, perfectly content and out of the blue I show up with a piece of cheese or some other little treat.
These are the kinds of vistas I love cycling for, that I love going outside for. The cloud cover was beautiful, making all of the colors pop. The air was clear thanks to a couple of rain showers earlier in the day. #LeicaQ2
Tolle Folge von “Der Tag” im DLF. Themen sind das durchweg unsoziale Kampfpapier der FDP vor deren Parteitag und eine Einschätzung eines Historikers zur Geldspritze der USA für den Kampf der Ukraine gegen die Invasion Russlands.
Launching a new attempt to change my diet (less carbs, mainly) and I’m happily falling down the rabbit hole of foodstagram. Already saved a bunch recipes and tried a few of them with great success.
Itsy bitsy spider. Really tiny little thing, a „Marpissa muscosa“. It was sitting on a bit of wall decoration in our living room.
Went for a Feierabend walk yesterday evening to fully immerse myself in the fact that it was the 23rd of April and we‘ve been getting enough snow for many of the ski slopes in the area to reopen. Caught a beautiful sunset. Good times if exhausting because trudging through 60 cm of snow is 🥵.
Einer der angenehmsten Aspekte Angestellter zu sein (im Vergleich zu einem selbstständigen Gewerbetreibenden) ist es keine Beiträge mehr an die IHK entrichten zu müssen. Das ist so eine sinnlose Organisation und die Zwangsmitgliedschaft eine absolute Farce.
I think I‘m going to enjoy that Laowa 65 mm macro lens on my Fujifilm X-H2. Found this exhausted wasp on my back porch yesterday and gave it some sugar water to recover. While it was resting it stayed still enough for me to capture a few pictures. 📷
Finished Constellation this morning. I’m not entirely sure whether I liked it but it sure was captivating. Quite the mind-bender and so very tense pretty much throughout all eight episodes. I think I’m up for a second season.
I asked for sandal weather yesterday.
„Ask and thou shalt receive“, I guess.
CW: Pasty Hobbit feet in sandals.
Cheeky blackbird. I was about 2 m away and it didn’t let itself be disturbed by my presence. It just kept digging for worms on this green roof.
All of this is unsurprising because the Tesla Cybertruck has been a terrible idea from the start but the video is really funny.
Holy wow, that’s great chocolate.
Finally tried this one, @scottlougheed@hachyderm.io
Not gonna lie, I get a bit of grim enjoyment seeing so many scalpers reducing the prices of their Fujifilm X100V now that the X100VI hits the market soon. Prices are still too high for what ostensibly are 3+ years old cameras but at least not above MSRP anymore.
I can never look at these „iris art shops“ and not see them as a biometric data harvesting operation. This one’s in Basel but they can be found in many cities.
Been having a confusing experience with the AirPods Pro 2 I bought two weeks ago constantly falling out of my ears. They’re supposed to have a secure fit. Turns out I couldn’t use conventional wisdom for the ear tips: typically I wear medium or small, here I needed large. 🤷🏻♂️
Just opened Prime Video on my TV and saw the notification that there will now be ads in shows unless I pay more. Decided to close the app again without hesitating for even a fraction of a second. There is too much content easily accessible to waste time on ads or pay Amazon‘s ransom.
Just absolutely love watching John Oliver interact with a tired Stephen Colbert. I have to say, though: the Bugler in me wants to see John appear on the Bugle again now and then just because The Bugle has come into its own so much over the past few years.
WOOO! 🥳 There was a new “Jokes Seth Can’t Tell”!
Two game-changing (cycling) base layer discoveries this winter season
For the 2023/2024 winter season I had promised myself to ride outside whenever possible. Two pieces of clothing really helped me with this, keeping me warm and comfortable for longer, even in very cold and wet weather:
Devold Expedition Merino 235 Shirt
I bought this shirt on a hunch during the 2023 Black Friday discount frenzy. I didn’t specifically want this for cycling, expecting that at a 235 g/m² weight it would be too warm for me during strenuous activities but it turned out to be perfect.
I pretty much always have the problem of the upper outsides of my thighs, the outsides of my butt and lower back getting cold while cycling. I mostly blame cycling garb manufacturers for not putting enough isolating material or even weatherproof material in these areas.
This shirt solves the issue for me because of its long cut. It properly covers the upper 2/3 of my butt which results in me staying warm even in temperatures below zero.
The other cool thing about this shirt is the magic that Devold has woven into it. I’ve never owned a merino wool base layer that regulates body temperature and sweat as well as this one. It’s become my go-to at home under hoodies and flannel shirts, when hiking, walking the dog, and cycling.
I have three of these shirts now.
Injinji Liner Crew Wool toe socks
These things are amazing for layering. Plain and simple.
I have a pair of Shimano SH-MW702 GoreTex shoes with a wide toe box for cold/foul weather cycling. Sadly even with thick wool socks, I sometimes got cold feet on longer rides once my feet have become properly sweaty once.
These liner socks have fixed that for me. Separating out my toes + the effects of layering other socks on top has been amazing. It’s easier to pick the right combination of socks depending on the conditions I’m going to be riding in and I often opt for a thinner pair of wool socks on top of these liners and bring a thicker pair with me on longer rides in the cold in case I’ve misjudged the temperatures.
WOOHOO! 🤩🥳😍
Production on the „Section 31“ movie has begun. #StarTrek 🖖
Damn. Now I want fried rice with an omelet. Also definitely stick around for the bonus bit at the end.
Recently almost every shop or brand I ordered from decided it was ok to subscribe me to their newsletter after. 😠 I think I‘m going to start immediately deleting the Fastmail masked email address after receiving ordered goods. Hopefully this will inconvenience these people at least a little.
Went for a ride yesterday that ended up including a bunch of serious underbiking. It left me very impressed with the Specialized S-Works Mondo tires, which offered more grip on a mix of wet or frozen dirt, snow and gravel than the tread pattern would suggest. 🚲
Hey people, I’m moving my Mastodon stuff to my new profile on social.lol. Please follow me there if you’re so inclined.
Ganz tolle Illustration von Watson. Heute demonstrieren Landwirte bundesweit. Wo sind die Forderungen nach Präventivhaft, wie bei Klimaprotesten?
Aber Spaß beiseite. Für einen tollen Überblick, warum die Bauern protestieren, einfach mal bei Ann-Kathrin Büüsker nachlesen.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck, fuck!
I’m in the mood to turn my downcountry hardtail into a drop bar hardtail with a super wide drop bar and the 12-speed GRX group. 🚲
Rapha Men's Trail Gore-Tex Pants — First impressions
TL;DR
I’m three rides in and so far I have only good things to say about the pants. Seems like a solid piece of gear with a single caveat: when worn in heavy rain, waterproof shoes with a high cuff are a must (more on that in the ride impressions).
Holy Capitalism, Batman! 300+ bucks for waterproof pants?
Yeah, that was my reaction when I first saw reports on a few cycling websites I read. The bad thing is that I was in the market for a new pair of waterproof pants because I had lost enough mass over the past few months that my Vaude pants simply didn’t fit anymore.
What I set out to find were pants that wouldn’t be used over jeans or chinos, allowing for a tighter fit suitable for foul weather road and off-road cycling and without a zippered leg cuff if possible.
After some research the contenders were the Raphas I ended up buying, the Q36.5 Rain Overpants, and the Fox Defend 3-Layer Water Pants. The Q36.5 were not advertised as off-road-worthy so despite the nice looks, I opted to order the Rapha and Fox pants because both were discounted around Black Friday.
I was honestly hoping that the Fox would come out on top because really, I didn’t see enough of a difference in quality of construction to justify the Rapha pants being more than 2× the price but … nope, that typical Fox cut that works so well for me in fair weather pants and shorts ended up a mixture of sagging on the back, constricting beneath my belly. The almost customary lack of a crotch zipper felt stupid on pants that are supposed to be waterproof. Oh and I quickly found that the elastic cuff of the Fox Defend 3L pants was tight enough to not fit over the cuff of my Shimano SH-MW702 waterproof shoes.
Fit
Pretty darn good.
Imagine a well-fitting straight cut jeans crossed with contoured MTB pants and a fabric feel like your typical high-quality 3-layer laminated membrane.
The fastening system works very well; it can be adjusted both very easily and precisely. The slightly elongated back is also a welcome design choice, reducing the chances of rain and wet, sloppy dirt from your back tire making its way up your spine.
The legs are quite long and while that may seem an odd choice at first, it makes sense the second you get on the bike and start pedaling because it ensures that cuff can rest on or barely above your shoes when pedaling or moving around on the bike.
Even only three rides in, this is something I really appreciate because my posterior tibial arteries were always covered, reducing the chances of me feeling cold in strong winds and rain.
Ride impressions
On each of the rides I did with the pants I tried testing something else. Two were done on my road bike, one on the MTB.
Mixed-surface ride, road bike, 5-ish°C, dry but windy AF
Wore the Raphas over a my padded summer MTB bib shorts and full-length merino tights. I had mid-weight below-the-calf merino socks on my feet and my go-to cycling shoes, the Specialized S-Works Recon Lace combined with a wind-proof toe cover.
I typically suffer from my lower back and the sides of my butt becoming uncomfortably cool even in supposedly wind-proof bib tights. Not this time. The combination of merino mid-layer and properly wind-proof outer layer worked super well on this pretty long ride. The long leg meant no wind was cooling out my ankles and that added to the comfort.
Road ride, road bike, 0°C average temps, rain and snow + wet roads
I paired the pants with my padded summer MTB bib shorts, long, unpadded and insulated Assos bib longs, and knee-high merino winter socks, as well as the Shimano MW-702 shoes.
The pants flowed well over the slick surface of the Assos tights and the aforementioned long legs meant that the pants stayed put over the cuff of my winter cycling shoes.
Throughout the ride I felt properly warm and didn’t overheat even on the hardest climbs of the route I chose despite a good amount of rain blocking evaporation on the membrane. Sure, I was sweaty when I got home but not wet from rain, snow, or road spray.
Off-road + trail ride, MTB, 10°C, windy and later the heavens opened up
This time I wore regular and slightly warmer padded bib shorts, no tights, some crew height mid-weight merino socks, my S-Works Recon Lace shoes + wind-proof toe cover. It was going to be a lot of climbing and sweating up the hills here and I also wanted to find out how the fabric of the pants felt on my skin and it wasn’t bad but also not as nice as with flowy non-membrane fabrics.
It was supposed to rain that day but only later in the afternoon and that’s why I didn’t wear my waterproof shoes. Well, halfway up and not even halfway into the route it started to rain and then it poured.
This is where I get back to the caveat I mentioned at the very beginning: when there’s rain, high-cuffed waterproof shoes are a must. The well-fitting elastic cuff of the pants funneled all of the rain, spray, and dirt into my shoes. Within minutes my cycling shoes were full of water and I was starting to get cold.
Even so: my legs stayed dry and comfortable and I got home in a good state, my feet being the exception. I rinsed off my waterproof jacket and pants in the shower and was glad that all of the muck and rain didn’t penetrate.
Here’s to more rides
The mixed surface ride and this very mucky trail ride covered the pants in dust and wet dirt and I’m happy that there’s no sign of abrasion so far. I’d be seriously alarmed if it were the case for a piece of gear so expensive but you never know.
The great fit is inviting and I’ll be wearing them often this winter.
Wat wie? Ein öffentliches Verkehrsmittel kann nicht für Gewinn betrieben werden und dann sind die Züge pünktlicher? Un-ge-möglich!
(Quelle)
What‘s old is new again: road bike geometry edition
🚲 Just read a review of the Lauf Úthald road bike on Bikerumor. The editor talked at length about the novel approach to slacker head angles that Lauf is using to make their road bike fast and less twitchy. Tyler Benedict praised the bike for not just feeling fast because of it but being confident and stable at speed thanks to this geometry.
Reading this is all made sense and I believe we‘re going to see more of it but when I arrived at the geometry table, the values seemed familiar. I opened the Van Nicholas home page, found the Yukon Disc and wouldn’t you know it: my bike has highly comparable values. So this audax bike, this long-distance endurance bike that’s been around for years and where the geometry hasn’t changed much over time is actually cutting edge. 😏
And hey, I can confirm Tyler‘s findings: a slightly slacker head angle and more fork rake makes for a very stable ride even at speed without letting the bike feel sluggish or unresponsive.
Specialized S-Works Mondo tires – first ride impression report
The WTB Exposure 30 I had been running on Swift Wind (my titanium Van Nicholas Yukon Disc) have finally worn down to the point they needed replacing. I really liked these tires: they punch far above their weight and lasted a long time.
The type of rubber I wanted to go with next needed to be lighter, faster, potentially narrower (for those all-important and marginal Aero Gains™) but still robust enough to survive excursions onto field and forest roads that I enjoy on my rides
The Specialized S-Works Mondo piqued my interest when I saw the announcement and after reading a review on Rennrad News and a first look on Bikerumor, I decided to give them a try.
Mounting
I bought the 700×28c version planning on running them with Schwalbe Aerothan tubes. Road tubeless may work for some people, for me it’s been nothing but frustrating, whereas the Aerothan tubes are no fuss and give me a similar ride feel.
I’m using a DT Swiss GRC 1600 wheel set (think: GRC 1400 rims but with 350-series hubs instead of 240). The rims are hookless with an inner width of 24 mm and an outer width of 32 mm.
Getting the tires onto these rims was an absolute pain in the butt.
Conti GP 5000 are tough to install on my other DT Swiss rims, these Mondos were an exercise in patience and persistence.
Once installed and inflated, they measured 29.86 mm, which is a smidge below the 30 mm minimum tire width DT Swiss specified for the rims but that’s fine. Specialized helpfully have a rim width/tire compatibility table on the packaging of the Mondos and not only is it within spec, the width came out almost exactly where Specialized projected it to be.
I read in a blog post somewhere that DT Swiss had tested these rims for road use and found that the best aerodynamic advantages are achieved with a 28 to 30 mm tire because that leaves the broadest part of the rim wider than the rubber.
First ride
I used the Silca tire pressure calculator to arrive at a recommended 70 psi for the front and 72 psi for the back and went for one of my regular training routes on road surfaces of varying smoothness, age, and quality. Weather was cold (around freezing) and road conditions were mostly wet.
First impressions are the following:
- This 29.86 mm tire (effective) is more supple than I expected it to be. I was jostled around only a little bit more than with the WTB Exposure 30 which blow up to 33 mm on these rims.
- They feel fast! Acceleration is excellent and they have plenty of grip in a straight line but don’t feel like they glue me to the surface.
- Cornering grip is impressive both in the wet and dry. I did a few corners on this route at a much higher speed in the wet than I would’ve typically done in the dry with the previous tires.
Not gonna lie, this looks amazing and I want to ride it. 🚴🏻♂️🚵🏻♂️
The Ride with Ben Delaney: Stetina‘s Paydirt gravel racing event
Dem wäre ich ja nicht abgeneigt. Ein kleiner Aufpreis auf mein Apple One-Abo und dafür Paramount+ mit drin haben klingt alles andere als schlecht.
Heise.de: “Kombiangebot: Tut sich Apple TV+ mit Paramount+ zusammen?"
I enjoy Michelle Wolf‘s comedy and delivery so much. Her current stint on the Daily Show is excellent.
Russ from Path Less Pedaled on the supposed dark side of electronic shifting
Russ Roca posted a video on his channel: “The DARK SIDE of Electronic Shifting No One Talks About”
He makes a couple of good points about compatibility, ease of performing modifications, and cost of upgrades and repairs but I still have problems agreeing with the doom and gloom situation he presents.
I’m really of a split opinion here. I have four bikes: a titanium road bike with Shimano Di2 and Shimano hydraulic brakes, a titanium MTB with mechanical SRAM Eagle shifting and Hope hydros, an e-bike with mechanical SRAM Eagle and Magura hydros, and a Trek retro-mod with mechanical SRAM Eagle and … Magura hydro rim brakes.
Both Magura and Shimano hydros are so ridiculously easy for me to service and even on tours I’m not worried because essentially every bike shop can do it. The advantages and lack of maintenance of those over most cable-actuated brakes simply outweigh the negatives for me.
A bit further into the video Russ talks about electronic shifting being the “death of freedom” but he also says,
Here’s the thing: humans are complex, there are certain aspects of my life where, you know, I’ll go for that simplicity. For example: video editing, I’m an Apple fanboy all day long. I just want things to work and in that instance I’m willing to give up, you know, certain levels of customization and control.
And that is the thing: with shifting I perceive Di2 similarly to my Apple gear: they’re both golden cages but very big and comfortable ones. When these products work and fit your needs, they are utterly perfect and effortless. When they don’t, they can be incredibly annoying.
Di2 shifting has been nothing but great for me. Setup and maintenance are simple and easy, the components long-lived (bought mine used). I have the gearing I want for this bike (48/32 + 11-32) and there’s even room to go 11-40 on that system with a Wolftooth Goat Link (as Jom from Gravel Cyclist confirmed).
That said: the frame I’m running Di2 on is a Van Nicholas Yukon disc with internal routing that is also fully compatible with wired shifting (even wired braking) if I ever want to go that route. It was important to me when I bought it because I did not want to get locked into electronic shifting systems.
All in all, I had expected something more profound from the video. Russ and Laura make good content but this felt more like a rant about something he doesn’t like because it doesn’t fit his needs.
Good stuff from Lenovo and Valve. Both the Legion Go and the Steam Deck OLED are quite easy to repair. I like that in a device the is bustled around a lot.
When you completely forget that you ordered a fancy new camera strap months ago and suddenly get the shipping notification. 😎
I think this is such a cool way of ensuring that cycling infrastructure persists and is accessible to many people: Why these paved MTB trails are absolutely genius 🚲
Alter Schwede! Ich habe eben ein Probeabo bei WOW TV beendet und die trauen sich wirklich Kunden ein Dark Pattern mit fünf (!) separaten Schritten bis zur erfolgreichen Kündigung vor die Nase zu setzen.
Why that was interesting: FortNine - Gore-Tex is a Marketing Gimmick
I have a lot of clothing with GoreTex and appreciate it. That said, my Endura cycling jacket with their ExoShell membrane does seem to offer better breathability.
DT Swiss tubeless tape > everything else.
I‘ve tried a good number of tapes (Stan‘s, Muc-Off, Schwalbe, etc.) and none were as easy to apply correctly or sealed as well. 🚲
Whenever I search for something on YouTube and a the title of a video in the search results contains a variation of “Watch THIS Before You BUY!”, I immediately know that I will not watch it.
I suppose I should consider myself lucky that Paramount/CBS never signed contracts with LEGO for Star Trek toys because I would be broke otherwise. 🖖
Cooking dinner (vegetarian burgers and salad) and listening to the latest episode of The Bugle. Good times.
When you come home from a 10-day vacation in the Swiss Jura mountains and the French Provence and haven’t gained any weight despite eating all the things. 🥳
It’s quite satisfying deleting a masked email address on Fastmail when the company I created this address for doesn’t react to requests to stop sending me emails or to delete my account.
Doing some work on a friend’s e-gravel bike and I’m having to exert all of my self-control not to hack 🪓 it to pieces because damn, internal cable routing can suck. I finally fully understand why bike mechanics dislike it so much. 🚲
Been considering an action camera for a while and if the rumors about the GoPro 12 getting a 1-inch sensor are true, that might get me to buy one, finally.
Good to see Rose offering a new high-quality and affordable road bike with solid group set options. Really nice when a company is bucking the trend of ever increasing prices. 🚴🏻♂️
Bikerumor: Rose Reveal AL Unveils Affordable Integrated Alloy Road Bike from 1900€
Met this little creature on a hike in the forest on Sunday. No idea what species of frog this is but there were a bunch of them all over the paths.
📷 ⛰️ 🐸
You know the new coffee you’re trying is strong when you barely had two big sips and it’s already kicking you in the bee-hind. ☕️😳
The Star Trek Strange New Worlds × Lower Decks crossover episode “Those Old Scientists” was utterly delightful. I’m so glad they made it. 🖖
heise.de: Bankhaus Goldman Sachs: Halbe Milliarde Verlust in Apple-Card-Sparte
More, please.
Moving from a 8-16 intermittent fasting schedule to a 5-2 schedule after three months of the former feels odd. I wonder how well I’ll deal with hunger on the two fasted days. Only consuming 500-ish calories may be a bigger challenge for me than not eating outside of an 8-hour window.
Dear UCI, kindly go fuck yourself for yesterday’s decision on transgender athletes. Transgender women are women. How about you show some work towards actual inclusion.
War eben im lokalen Edeka Eis kaufen. Auf dem Band landete Häagen-Dazs und Ben & Jerry‘s. Von Langnese, Mövenpick, Edeka Gut & Günstig, etc. gab es nur diese vermaledeiten Mogelpackungen, bei denen viel, viel Geld für Luft verlangt wird. Schade.
Impressions of my Van Nicholas Yukon Disc after 750 km
I purchased the frame set in mid-April, after realising that I had an itch to try something closer to a road bike. Something stiffer, faster, and built for skinnier tyres than my Veloheld Icon.X titanium gravel bike that I had purchased only in October 2022.
It was a bit of a search to find a titanium bike that had moderate clearance, proper rack and fender mounts, wasn’t built with some oddly shaped, brand specific fork, and something that I found pleasing to the eye but the Yukon Disc audax bike fit the bill, at least on paper.
The frame set arrived quickly enough but I had to have the fork swapped because the dropouts were badly finished to the point where I wouldn’t have trusted them on anything but smooth road surfaces.
Moving almost all of the components from the Veloheld to the Van Nicholas was simple but time-consuming and I do now get why bike mechanics dislike internal cable routing.
At this point I’ve done 750+ km on the bike and I’m very happy with it. The frame set is stiff enough to lend itself to fast road rides, it accelerates quickly, and the steering is towards the more direct side between the Veloheld Icon.X and the full-on 2004 Litespeed Tuscany road bike that I’ve sold a couple of years back. The geometry is bit more upright and comfortable for longer rides (especially combined with some carbon Ritchey handlebars).
Right now I have a pair of WTB Exposure 30 tyres on it, which plump up to 32 mm on the DT Swiss GRC1600 wheels (hookless with 24.5 mm inner width) and these tyres are really versatile. Great for fast, dry road rides and with a little less pressure they work well enough on mild gravel, too.
So far going for an „all road“ bike seems to have been exactly what I was looking for. I don’t plan on tackling the kinds of rides with it that I have my XC mountain bike for but I’m also not limited to planning routes in Komoot locked in to the „road bike“ category; „bike“ works perfectly fine and I know it won’t throw anything at me that I can’t handle on this bike with slick tyres.
The frame and fork can take up to a 35 mm wide rubber and I’ve already done a couple of proper gravel rides using DT Swiss CR1600 wheels shod with Schwalbe X-One 33 mm tubeless tyres. Now that was a bunch of fun and it’s the setup I plan on using for this year’s Gravel Rallye Rhine Valley.
For many cyclists n+1 is a reality and I don’t want to claim to be an exception – my stupid brain is already thinking of what fun thing to do with the Veloheld frame set … maybe a flat bar gravel bike? I can honestly say that I’m enjoying this bike more than I would’ve thought possible and something really groundbreaking would have to come along to get me to even think of replacing it.
A Pisaura Mirabilis spider that I encountered while doing a bit of gardening work last week and quickly captured with the macro mode on the Leica Q2. Not sure if it’s a male spider carrying a mating present or a female spider carrying eggs.
Sarah Sturm is such a legend. I’d love to get my fitness to a point where I can even race the 200 km variant of the Traka.
It’s quite satisfying just deleting an email address for an account I no longer use, I kept getting excessive amounts of newsletters or even spam at. Simply poof and one less thing that annoys me. Fastmail’s “Masked Email” integrated with 1Password is just so useful.
Matteo Lane has a new comedy special out on YouTube: Hair Plugs & Heartache
It is very much not safe for work and very funny. Highly recommended.
This was an instant pledge: Alice Fraser in collaboration with The Bugle are publishing their first book, the The D’Ancey LaGuarde Reader. It’s what they describe as
a collection of the hottest works by D’Ancey LaGuarde; self-published romance maven of The Gargle
This is going to be great!
Good on you Etsy, for recommending people use an authenticator app for the purpose of 2FA because it’s the more secure option. Next step: passkeys.
When your body has gotten used sunny days and now it’s raining and it needs pots worth of coffee to stay awake.
Had the Rotor Aldhu 48/32 crankset combined with the GRX group set on the bike for a while but ever so often, I get a crunching shift from the small ring into the big ring. Shimano designed GRX with a different chain line and I’ve just gone back to the GRX crankset to see if this was the cause. 🚲
Ich frage mich ja manchmal, ob Menschen, die versuchen bei Festpreisangeboten auf Kleinanzeigen zu verhandeln, es gewohnt sind im Leben immer ihren Willen zu bekommen.
Always nice to learn more about how to set up my bikes.
On a 3-day bikepacking trip last weekend, I noticed that I was putting too much pressure on the outside part of my hands. Turns out, 12° backsweep on my handlebars is too much. Swapped it for an 8° backsweep one and it’s much comfier. 🚲
Going back to intermittent fasting after four days of eating anytime all the time while bikepacking is kinda hard.
„Home“, the place where the WLAN connects automatically and you get better coffee than anywhere else.
Bin mir ja 100%-ig sicher, dass sich ein Hundetransportaufsatz für den Tout Terrain Mule gut verkaufen würde. Meine kleine alte Dame mag das Setup sehr.
Going into Freiburg the next couple of months it will be hard not to stop by this ice cream shop every time. This stuff is seriously good.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, season 2 trailer … … … 😶😮😲🤯😍 #BoimBoim
Hey, remember when we were connecting palmtops to cellphones over IrDA? Fun times. Back then “WAP” meant something entirely different.
Hari Kondabolu – Vacation Baby
I just watched the last 15 minutes of this comedy special during breakfast and Hari is as good as ever. Watch it.
FYI: Star Wars Rebels not only holds up well during a rewatch, it’s some of the best Star Wars there is.
Bin gerade hochgradig genervt, dass mich die FSME-Auffrischimpfung körperlich so mitnimmt. Habe Gliederschmerzen und bin abgeschlagen. 😩
Rare work-related post:
Just so excited for what our 1Password team is building there. Passkeys are going to be a huge boon for end-user security and usability.
Less than a week until Grinduro Germany 2023 and I’m properly excited. 🚲
Brought my mountain bike to my local bike shop ahead of Grinduro Germany next week. The suspension fork and the dropper post need some maintenance, the tyres are getting inserts, and I‘ve asked them to put new disc brake discs on because the Hope floating discs are too loud. 🚲
Es muss mal wieder gesagt werden:
Mitarbeiter der Kirchen (Priester, Pastoren, etc.) müssen der weltlichen Gerichtsbarkeit unterstehen. Es ist untragbar, dass hier überhaupt eine Trennung existiert. Speziell die katholische Kirche ist für mich nichts weiter als eine mafiöse Organisation.
Oh this is going to be AWESOME!
I’m still madly amused by GM’s asinine decision to no longer offer Apple CarPlay or Android Auto in their future electric vehicles. They are trying really, really hard to ignore how important convenient integration of their smartphone is to a person.
HOLYSHITHOLYSHIT
HOLYSHITHOLYSHIT
HOLYSHITHOLYSHIT
HOLYSHITHOLYSHIT
Anticipation is definitely building for the new Spider-Verse movie. Looking forward to it.
1st step of the all road bike build/component swap is completed:
I’ve removed some of the decals from the Van Nicholas Yukon Disc frame and gave those sections a fresh brushed finish. I don’t understand why some titanium bike manufacturers insist on putting garish decals everywhere. 🚲
Had a good day. Went for a short but taxing bike ride that put me into this state where I’m comfortably exhausted physically and mentally alert. I love feeling like this. 📷 🚲
Dunno why but this scene from Meet Joe Black hits me every time.
A stork on the look-out.
Total capture by chance at the end of a walk with my dog.
(Fujifilm X-T3 + XF70-300, Classic Chrome)
Immer wieder amüsant, wie Leute bei Festpreisinseraten auf eBay Kleinanzeigen trotzdem handeln wollen und dann mit lächerlich niedrigen Angeboten daher kommen. 🤨 🤷🏻♂️
Not gonna lie, I laughed harder at this than I probably should have.
(Side note: those massage guns are really good and I wouldn’t want to miss mine.)
It’s annoying and frankly ridiculous that Paramount Plus hasn’t managed to release their app for LG smart TVs in Europe, yet.
Still absolutely in love with this “Badgy” wallpaper from The Iconfactory (designed by Ged Maheux).
😂🤣😂 This is hilarious. (From one of my favourite comic artists, Huda Fahmy.)
What a great start into Tuesday. 😤
Two work meetings cancelled on very short notice. The optometrist I engaged to outfit my old Oakley Why 3 with new glasses did a crap job and destroyed the frame. A gift order for my SO has been cancelled. Hoping it doesn’t continue this way.
KRÄPPEL FOREVER! ✊
Quelle: funk @ instagram
Brunch ride and the long road to build up stamina again
😕 not happy with how many breaks I had to take on the climbs today.
Yes, this particular route is a bit brutal and sure, I’ve cycled ever day the past three days but none of them were long or particularly strenuous. I’ve lost so much stamina through and in the pause after the Covid infection in September last year.
Don’t get me wrong, the pause was necessary and sensible to reduce the chances of damaging my heart but it’s still disappointing and demotivating.
Two email addresses important to me showed up in data breaches 😤
Over the past month, three services that I use or used had their customer databases compromised. Two of my most-used email addresses are now being hammered with spam, phishing attempts, and attempts to reset my passwords.
I’m in a fairly comfortable position because I’m a) aware that the breaches happened, b) work in the industry and have a pretty good understanding of the types of problems that come with data breaches, c) use 2FA wherever possible, d) use strong, random and unique passwords everywhere thanks to 1Password (coincidentally also where I work), and e) I can limit the fallout from these addresses being leaked reasonably quickly by changing the email addresses for any important accounts to aliases in Fastmail and using the Fastmail × 1Password “Masked Email” feature for less important accounts. f) Once that is done, I’ll simply delete the email addresses altogether.
Das unerwartete Klarna-Problem (Schufa)
Krass. Bin immer davon ausgegangen, dass Klarna als Zahlungsdienstleister fungiert und nicht als kredit-gebender Treuhänder. Gut, dass ich die seit Jahren nicht mehr genutzt habe.
The legal team of the reality TV cooking show MasterChef failed to get Jessie Glenn to sign a NDA. She recounts what it was like being a contestant. It’s shocking yet somehow also completely unsurprising.
This continues to be one of my favourite web comics of all time. I have a print of it over the desk in my office and it puts a grin on my face every time I look at it. Comic by Jane Zei of The Pigeon Gazette.
😍😍😍 Just how sexy is this bike!
Onguza Original Gravel Model 1 🚲
Impressive and satisfying first Bugle of 2023, featuring “Family show, Alice.” and Nish Kumar completely losing it laughing. Thanks @ZaltzCricket, @aliterative and @MrNishKumar
While researching tyres for a new bike project, I stumbled across the Vittoria Terreno Zero 700×47c. They’re not listed on Vittoria’s website but lots of retailers have them. Looking forward to giving them a spin. 🚲
Do it, Apple. Travel back in time and do it yesterday. I don’t care. Give me touchscreen Macs. Give me macOS on an iPad Pro. Heck. Take my money. Anyone remember the ModBook? Jeez.
Frühbucherangebot genutzt und für die Marathon-Distanz beim 2023er Black Forest Ultra Bike Marathon angemeldet. War ein Riesenspaß letztes Jahr und ich freue mich schon auf die diesjährige Veranstaltung.
Date: 31 December 2022
Location: Middle of the beautiful Black Forest, Germany
Temperature: 18.something °C (65-ish F)
I’m running errands in jeans and t-shirt. 🤪🥲😔
When you spend a part of your vacation cleaning up the mess that is your external storage media and fall down a rabbit hole of “what is necessary to securely erase a hard drive”. 🤦🏻♂️
What a way to spend the evening: I’m in the kitchen preparing one of our favourite dishes for dinner and I’m listening to Matteo Lane’s “The Advice Special” on YouTube.
WEEE! 😍 The 4K UHD version of “The Fifth Element” I ordered just arrived. So looking forward to watching this masterpiece in 4K soon.
Seth and Lizzo Go Day Drinking
One of the funniest “Seth and 𝑥 Go Day Drinking” segments to date. Lizzo completely losing it at the end just made my day. Watch it and then watch it again.
Twitter prohibiting links promoting other social media networks is the clearest sign of weakness and most striking admission of failure Elon Musk could’ve possibly posted.
Finally replaced my aging 2016 MacBook Pro and went for a M2 MacBook Air. Really impressed with the computing power this thing has: I’m running a Windows 11 VM full-screen on a 5K2K LG ultra wide monitor and macOS on the internal display and the machine doesn’t even get warm.
What’s a huge upside to hearing Josh Gondelman‘s voice on The Bugle and The Gargle so often? I read excellent articles like “How to hate a Jew like a Jew” in his voice in my head. Oh and if you like Josh’s stuff, he has a newsletter on substack now that’s definitely worth subscribing to.
With all of the discussions about Twitter, content curation, and the open web, I can’t express strongly enough how grateful I am for my feed aggregator of choice, Feedbin. The filtering options alone are worth the price. It also has one of the best designed web apps I know.
It’s become too cold for riding in cycling shoes and thick socks alone and I hate the faff of overshoes, so I just ordered two pairs of insulated and waterproof clipless shoes: The Fizik Terra Artica X2 and the Shimano SH-MW702. Let see which one fits better. 🚲
Sitting at a car dealership, getting a few things fixed and modified on my Forester. They just handed me a cup of coffee. Someone here really enjoys good ☕️ because not only is it not terrible (as you’d expect), it’s tasty and strong as heck. I’m having my butt whooped.
Just ordered the newly released Røde NT-USB+ microphone. Been looking for something capable to make me sound better during video calls and webinar recordings and this looks like a solid option with USB-C connectivity and a pop filter in the package.
Out with the old, in with the new, I guess. Not happy about the fact that helmets essentially have an expiration date but 🤷♂️. Not going to risk it. The neon yellow Bell Zephyr is getting replaced with the dark grey and green Bell XR. 🚲
It’s 17°C in my basement office. Let’s see how long I can go heroically not turning on the heating this year. So far I’ve switched to warmer wooly socks, put on a merino wool long sleeve under my hoodie, and made myself a large mug of earl grey.
Pure fire from John Oliver and his team again this week:
The Monarchy: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
DPReview TV compared the old Fujifilm 18-55 ƒ/2.8-4.0 to the new Sigma 18-55 ƒ/2.8. I loved this lens when I started out shooting with Fujifilm but I didn’t expect it to hold its own this well against the Sigma.
So I spent a good amount of time today thoroughly degreasing and cleaning my gravel bike’s drivetrain. I’m switching lubricants again, this time to Squirt wax. Wolftooth’s lubricant didn’t hold up to the promises for me. Let’s see how it goes. 🚲
Not gonna lie, I’m greatly looking forward to this one and I also hope it’s going to be the last one:
John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023 Movie) Official Trailer
The covid infection in early September really screwed up my fitness. I took getting back into training slow to reduce the possibility of damaging my heart or other organs but it’s just so damn frustrating seeing levels at which I’ve cycled in late August compared to now. 😔
Just how sexy is the “Wizard’s Potion” colourway (lavender & purple) for the new Ibis Hakka MX bicycle? 😍 🚲
Cycled to the other side of Freiburg today to pick up two EXIT game puzzles. It was much colder than expected and I had to push hard to make the meeting with the seller. Bought some emergency cake to fuel for the ride back home.
Now that Fujifilm has announced the X-T5, I‘m impatiently waiting for the first rumours about an X100V successor to show up. Can’t wait for this thing to get the 40 MP treatment. I‘ll buy it instantly.
If anyone’s looking for a vegan protein powder: I’m liking the unflavored and unsweetened stuff from Huel quite a bit. I blend it with fruit and if I want some extra sweetness, a bit of honey. (I can’t stand artificial sweeteners or stevia.)
There are many valid reasons to be against Rishi Sunak having become Prime Minister of the UK. Him being of Indian descent, a Brown man, and Hindu are not, as Trevor Noah neatly summarises.
The trailer for “Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania” looks so good.
I just love how this week’s episode of The Gargle went off the rails so quickly and then just kept going.
Es ist so ungeheuer tragisch, wie unzuverlässig die Deutsche Bahn ist, denn ich merke hier im ICE sitzend grad wieder, wie gerne ich eigentlich Bahn fahre. Es ist eine Schande, wie sehr unser Schienenverkehrsnetz durch die vorherigen Regierungen kaputtgespart wurde. 🚅💺😍
Curious what they’re going to make of this third season. Can’t wait for it to be released. #StarTrekPicard 🖖
My new daily beater/commuter retro-mod bicycle is finished
Late in summer of 2021 I stumbled across a 1996 Trek MultiTrack in almost mint condition on a classifieds site. The seller was running a small business on the side, finding really nice, old bikes in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, cleaning them, repairing what needs repairing and reselling them at a decent mark-up.
The frame is aluminium made for Trek by Easton and welded in the USA. The fork is a CroMo fork with full-width reinforced rack eyelets. Both painted in a beautiful metallic bordeaux red. All original parts were from Trek’s in-house accessory brand (before Bontrager) and the groupset was full Shimano STX RC (including the wheels).
I immediately fell in love with this bike and after I picked it up from the seller at Lake Constance, it was fitted with a pair of SKS Bluemels Long fenders and a period-appropriate rear rack.
After riding it happily for a few months, I made some changes to my stable of bikes and with some inspiration from The Radavist and Bikepacking.com—typical cyclist, I know—I got it into my head that I could turn this into a retro mod that would be appropriate not only for really quick runs to the supermarket but also for day rides when I don’t need one of my more performance-oriented bikes. I checked what I had laying around in terms of componentry, made a list of stuff I’d need and got searching.
I have to admit that it did feel like sacrilege swapping all of those perfectly good old components but I’m very happy with the result (and I’m not giving them away, so if I ever decide to sell the bike again, I’ll likely install them again).
List of changes:
- 680 mm wide (25.4 mm clamp diametre) Reserve handlebars (new, stripped the logos)
- Higher stem (bought used)
- Spurcycle bell, black (new – none of my bikes feels complete without one)
- SRAM GX Eagle group + NX Eagle HG cassette (bought used)
- Rotor Aldhu cranks + Rotor oval 34t chainring (bought used and got it surprisingly cheap)
- Magura HS33 hydro rim brakes (new)
- Specialized Pizza Rack (bought used)
- DT Swiss rims (32 spokes, 19 mm internal width) with Shimano XT hubs front and rear (bought used, almost mint condition and got them for a really good price)
- Specialized Pathfinder Pro 700×38c (used) on Tubolito tubes (also used)
The bike rides really well and with the very low gearing, lugging the doggy trailer up one of many hills in the area is quite doable. The rims are excellent and braking performance with the HS33 is incredible.
I don’t post stuff by The Lincoln Project often but this is a good one. Republicans deride Biden’s policies as socialism, vote against it but open their hands for the money, because they know claiming to have improved their constituents’ lives may help them remain in power.
I’m so happy the Amber Ruffin Show is back for a third season and this segment is honestly my favourite one of the entire show so far just for Amber’s unadulterated glee.
The latest episode of She-Hulk was amazing. The entire part where Jennifer is taking control flirting with Matt and then talking to the audience how satisfying it was, simply felt right. Also: calling out the „woman in the fridge“ trope to the audience‘s faces … I loved it.
The Bugle: Excuse Me While I F**k The Sky (4242)
Not gonna lie, @ZaltzCricket cracking up @MrNishKumar to the point where he loses his shit is giving me life.
“Es ist kein Widerspruch gegen einen Kopftuchzwang und zugleich gegen ein Kopftuchverbot zu sein."
Sarah Bosetti bringt das wunderbar auf den Punkt. Toller Beitrag, unbedingt sehenswert.
I’m barely 3 minutes into season 3 episode 6 of Star Trek Lower Decks and already I have all the feels.🖖
Happy 35th birthday, Star Trek TNG. 🖖
TNG was my first contact with the Star Trek universe and the crew of the NCC-1701-D will forever hold a special place in my heart.
Ye-heeeeees! There’s a new „Jokes Seth can’t tell“!
Since the successor of my beloved clipless cycling shoes is a far cry from the fit and quality of the original, I‘ve decided to try something else and ordered some Specialized S-Works Recon Gravel shoes and a pair of Lake MX 238 X. Looking forward to trying them. 🚲
Mir sind ja mittlerweile Innenstädte unsympathisch, in denen Leute draußen rauchen. Von überall kommt Gestank her. Lädt nicht zum verweilen ein.
Out with the old, in with the new. It was time to replace the Chris King PF30 bottom bracket that came with the bike with something new and better. So I went with a Cane Creek Hellbender 70. Installation was super smooth. 🚲
Immer wieder lustig zu sehen, wenn die Heute Show besseren Journalismus bietet als andere Formate und selbst in einem halb scherzhaften Interview zur Cannabis-Legalisierung mit Karl Lauterbach gute Informationen liefert.
Well the models probably didn’t take into account how quickly and badly we’d fuck up the planet in exchange for generating short-term shareholder value. 😡
Schönes, kompaktes Video zu typischen Technikfehlern beim Rudern auf dem Ergometer und wie sie vermieden werden können.
Lizzie Philip of The Verge has a video up on their Seeker Youtube channel about the future of cultured meat. I’ve been following this topic for a while now and this is a pretty good summary.
How flipping cool is that?
Benjamin Td built an interactive map that shows where you can get to with a 5-hour train ride in Europe from major train stations.
Gah! Still waiting for the majority of the components for my next bike build. So hard to get stuff right now and the wait times are incredibly frustrating. 🚲
Freue mich auf das Finale der Frauenfußballeuropameisterschaft. Bin mir sicher, wir werden verdammt guten Fußball sehen. #WEURO2022 #ENGGER
Trevor Noah on the ongoing controversy around Lizzo and her song “Grrls”.
He hits the nail on the head. Leave Lizzo alone. She did more than she had to and she couldn’t have handled this better.
I think I’ve watched the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever trailer ten times now and the bit where Angela Bassett talks powerfully about her loss hits so hard every time. Can’t wait to see more of her in the movie.
Mir ist ja mittlerweile jede Apotheke suspekt, die prominent Homöopathie oder – und das habe ich erst kürzlich wahrgenommen – „anthroposophische Arzneimittel“ anbietet, bewirbt oder überhaupt als Medikamente kennzeichnet.
Holy shit, the “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” trailer. Holy shit.
The 🚲 bike parts market is 🤪 sometimes.
While looking for better brakes for my commuter bike, I saw that the average price for a set of Shimano XTR BR-M960 v-brakes (used, without levers) is € 150.—
Instead I just bought a complete set of new Magura HS33 for € 159.—
On Saturday I’ll be trying myself at a 70+ km, ~ 1,800 m of climbing MTB marathon and smart as I am, I may attempt a saddle change before then because even though I like the Specialized PowerArc Elaston saddle for what it is, my butt doesn’t agree on rides longer than 25 km.
Köstlicher Thread zu Verkehrschaos an einem McDrive. Unbedingt empfehlenswert.
Today is a dark day and with the supreme court the way it is right now, it will get worse. I feel for all of my friends and really everyone in the U.S. and I wish you all the strength you need for the fight ahead. #RoeVsWade
Just gotta love Windows update progress estimations. I’m performing a major update on an old machine and the progress percentage at one point dropped from 25% back to 22%. 🤦🏻♂️🤷🏻♂️
Happy Juneteenth everyone!
One of the most noble tasks a bike can perform: carry pizza.
(Side note: pizza from the new Italian restaurant in the vicinity is quite good.)
Phew! Reached home after a walk with the dog about 10 seconds before it started properly pouring rain. The two of us would’ve been drenched in seconds. 🌧️🐕😮💨
Fox Racing had a bunch of Ranger shorts in the old style on discount in their EU store and I totally pounced on that offer, buying three. I really like the fit of these shorts both on the gravel bike and the MTB. 🚲
I just love starting into the day with a bit of cycling. This morning I took Battle Cat 2.0 on a quick single track ride in a nearby forest and onto a pump track for the first time. 🚲
Goddamn. The ease with which Judy Dench delivers crushing lines as M in the Daniel Craig Bond movies amazes and delights me every time I watch them.
Eine unbedingt empfehlenswerte, kritische Auseinandersetung mit SSI (Self-Sovereign Identity) von Lilith Wittman:
Mit dem Personalausweis zum Onlineshopping: Wie selbstbestimmt sind “selbstbestimmte Identitäten”?
Where I had a bit of a hard time getting into E. K. Johnston’s “Star Wars: Queen’s Shadow”, the second book in the series, “Star Wars: Queen’s Peril”, grabbed me from the start. 📚
Got a couple of vaccine booster shots today (tick-borne encephalitis and a few others). I want to blame them for the fact that I’m tired enough to drink a strong green tea at 5 PM but it’s likely just because I only slept five hours tonight.
Die neuen Aufkleber von @BenteliciousArt sind am Freitag angekommen und ein Vögelchen hat direkt ein Zuhause gefunden.
Bikepacking.com HOME AGAIN: A BIKE RIDE TO A BIKE RACE (FILM)
Great blog post and film about a group of Black cyclists from the U.S. venturing over to Sierra Leone to take part in the 2022 Tour de Lunsar. 🚲
Goddamn!
This could to be an interesting series. Loving that Marvel is producing content with lesser known characters.
Attended an event to combat climate change in my region yesterday evening and sure enough, this morning I got a warning that I’ve been in close proximity to someone infected with COVID. There were ~120 people in the room and only four (including me) wore a mask the entire time.
The new XC/downcountry mountain bike frame has finally arrived. Three months of waiting for this custom beauty. The build will be fun. 📷 🚲
That was a really enjoyable yoga session with Jonelle. Woke me right up. fitness.apple.com/de/workou…
My friend Mike Tselikman shared this article with me recently.
9to5Mac: Apple patent describes iPad keyboard accessory that triggers macOS-like UI
Dear @Apple, I don’t say this often and I never say it lightly:
SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! 💸
Dear fellow men, please stop being whiny dicks. People with vaginas have periods. They’re a thing. Not disgusting or unclean. Believe me, most women are more annoyed by them than you could possibly be.
<img src=“https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/4828/2022/0512317e7a.jpg" alt=“AITA for “forcing” my husband to sleep on the couch: This conflict is pretty recent. I (f29) used to use tampons for my periods but due to medical reasons couldn’t do it anymore. now I’m using pads which isn’t that big of a deal but my husband disagrees. He firstly complained about me not “consulting” him first but like I said it’s not a huge deal like BC. He then said he doesn’t feel comfortable with me sleeping in bed wearing pads. this threw me off hard because I wasn’t expecting him to have an issue on that regard, but he said it just doesn’t feel comfortable for him and he would like me to use tampons at nighttime or sleep somewhere else. I laughed him off and kept sleeping on the bed while wearing my pads like there was no issue. This made him so uncomfortable he basically took the couch then started complaining about how I forced him on the couch by making him uncomfortable after he already offered me compromises. but I told him he was being a drama queen because his compromises are illogical, I wouldn’t stop using pads and free bleed on the bed nor risk my health and use tampons when the doctor advised again them. he’s still upset with me even though I’m no longer on my period saying I owe him for making him uncomfortable and brushing off his complaints.” />
Taking care of my taxes on a sunny Saturday = living my best life. Obviously.
I have to sign into so many portals and save so many invoices; no way I’d be sane without the 1Password browser extension.
I’ve had this Windows tablet for the better part of three days and every minute of using it makes me sad that the iPad Pro is so artifically limited. An iPad Pro that can run macOS when connected to a mouse and keyboard would be an absolute killer. Instant purchase.
So, so glad I’m in this place. Twitter is going to go through some very tough times and I have a strong feeling we’ll all feel the repercussions.
Upgrading the headlight on my ebike to a Lupine SL F. I appreciate how well Bosch has designed the motor units; the most difficult part of the process is getting the cables through the frame. 🚲
Aktuell gibt es wieder mehr Phishing-Angriffe auf Nutzer von eBay-Kleinanzeigen. Genaures in diesem Artikel auf heise online. Passt bitte auf Leute.
First big annoyance being back on Windows:
Typing a non-breaking space, en- or em-dashes is unnecessarily difficult. Like, ridiculously.
The Lenovo ThinkPad X12 Detachable arrived. Been a while since I had a proper Windows PC. The hardware is so well made. Very different approach to what I’ve been used to from Apple for the past 14 years but good nevertheless.
I finally caved and ordered a Windows tablet
With WWDC coming, I was about to write another post clamouring, pleading, even begging for a macOS tablet or iPadOS becoming less of a limiting factor for the applications it runs. I like macOS and iPadOS mostly and the app ecosystem for Apple’s operating systems is hard to beat. Yet not a day goes by that I don’t wish I could perform certain tasks on my iPad Pro that I can do on my MacBook Pro, or interact with content on my MacBook Pro’s screen by touching it, or just grabbing the disply to read something in portrait mode.
Instead of writing that article again, I finally broke down and ordered a ThinkPad X12 Detachable.
I hesitated taking the plunge because
- the hardware is well over a year old already,
- the Microsoft Surface Pro 8 exists and is better in many ways (higher-resolution display, better colour reproduction, two Thunderbolt 4 ports) and
- devices of this class with Intel’s new Alder Lake architecture are right around the corner.
That’s always the issue, though, right? Something new and better is always around the corner. In the end, I decided to go for it because
- I found a demonstration unit in supposedly “as good as new” condition for a decent price with a lot of warranty still in place,
- I’ve always had a soft spot for the ThinkPad design language,
- the display is going to be good enough for my use (as good as the iPad Pro display in terms of colour reproduction),
- it has LTE built-in,
- and I’m definitely going to enjoy the keyboard.
It’s going to be interesting finding Windows alternatives to my favourite and most-used applications from both macOS and iPadOS.
This may be a new record: @ZaltzCricket managed to get @MrNishKumar lose his shit less than a minute into episode 4226 of The Bugle.
Removing Harry Potter from my shelves because J.K. Rowling is a raging TERF
Some time two weeks ago, yet another story of the Harry Potter author publicly supporting something hateful aimed at the transgender community was reported on. This finally had me grab all Harry Potter books from my shelves, put them in a cardboard box, tape the box shut and put it away.
The Harry Potter books have meant a lot to me. I don’t know how many times I’ve read them or listened to the Stephen Fry-narrated audiobooks. Hell, the books became so familiar to me that I bought them in various languages to aid me in learning. The franchise has been a point of connection with a number of friends. References from and memes based on content from the books and movies will be forever burned into my brain.
But over the past few years, I found it hard to look at the books without a painful pang, robbing me of the joy I typically felt when thinking of the stories. The author’s decision to propagate transphobia has tainted my relationship with the Harry Potter books for a long time, and it was, in all honesty, mixed with a fair amount of shame because I didn’t catch the various bits of transphobic drivel in her Cormoran Strike novels, at a time where I had believed myself to be more sensitive to those topics already.
For the longest time, I didn’t quite understand why that was, why I wasn’t able to separate Rowling from Harry Potter, when I’ve separated the art from the artist in other cases. Now I believe I finally got it:
J.K. Rowling is intentionally, actively, violently transphobic. She uses her gigantic platform to propagate hate and props up others who want to see transgender people hurt and excluded from society. By all appearances she revels in spreading an ideology devoid of tolerance and humanity.
This, combined with how much I love(d) the Harry Potter franchise, is the reason why I can’t continue to blissfully enjoy the books. With Rowling it’s not accidental ignorance, it’s her desire to cause pain and endanger transgender persons.
I can’t expect her to change her behaviour, to stop causing pain, but I can fill the space on the shelf with books from other authors.
If you like Star Trek: The Next Generation, check out the replies to this tweet from the ever excellent Swapna Krishna, where she asks people to share their favourite TNG memory. All of it is pure gold and warms my heart. 🖖
The friendship between these two just oozes out of every second of the conversation. Congratulations on five Grammys and your marriage, Jon Batiste.
Finally taking the time to get all of my old photos from various places into Lightroom, Apple Photos, and onto SmugMug. Managed to get Aperture running on macOS Big Sur to not have to sort through my file-based backups.
🚲 Battle Cat in “pick-up ride in the rain and cold”-mode.
🚴🏻♂️ Alex in “pick-up ride in the rain and cold”-mode.
WOOHOO!
My two repaired pairs of Bedrock Cairn sandals and the new turquoise pair arrived. Bring on the sandal weather already.
If you like to start into your day snort-laughing, you should listen to this week’s episode of… The Gargle.
(Seriously, I was bent over the kitchen counter laughing. Thank you Alice Fraser, Alison Spittle, and Neil Delamere.)
Saw this posted by Snipe on Twitter a bit ago and needed to get it on here.
I would watch this on repeat.
Sunday fun day. Even when I’m pushing my bike + dog trailer + dog up a 30% gradient.
(Photo taken by my friend Dirk Breuer.) 🚲 📷
Eine ehemalige Abgeordnete der AfD wird wieder Richterin
Legal Tribune Online: AfD-Politikerin wird in Berlin wieder Richterin
Wer in einer rechtsextremen Partei Mitglied ist, sollte keine Position in der Justiz einnehmen dürfen. Punkt. Es gibt keine gemäßigten Rechtsextremen.
Die AfD will den Rechtsstaat abschaffen und aus diesem Grund müssen AfD-Mitglieder als gefährliche Agenten angesehen werden und, außerhalb ihrer Parteitätigkeiten, aus allen Bereichen des öffentlichen Lebens ferngehalten werden, die für unsere Demokratie kritisch sind.
Not gonna lie, I’m thrilled about this 1Password ad with Ryan Reynolds.
Disclosure: I’m part of the 1Password team.
WEEE! Just got an email telling me that my two repaired/refreshed pairs of Bedrock Cairn sandals and the new pair I ordered are on their way to me. Can’t wait.
Es wird einfach nicht weniger mit den Schwurblern. Es wäre zum schreien komisch, wenn es nicht so traurig wäre.
Schwurbler-Wende: Naidoo & Wendler sind jetzt Kriegsexperten | WALULIS DAILY
Really fun weekend taking the dogs to places they’ve not been to before. The small one was her usual spunky self and the big old lady seemed to enjoy slowly exploring new paths, too. 📷 🐕
It always makes me happy and proud when my coworkers get my obscure Star Trek references in our chats. 🖖
Veeery tempted to buy these two ships for my collection. The U.S.S. Cerritos because Lower Decks is simply one of my favourite Star Trek series and the Rocinante because few SciFi series (book and TV) have left as much of an impression on me as The Expanse.
Holy fucking shit! Reading “Leviathan Falls” and got to the New Egypt scene. My heart is beating like it wants to escape my chest from the tension. Well done @JamesSACorey, well done. 📖
Went out for a really fun lunch ride. About 70% road and 30% gravel. First time in shorts this year and damn my legs are pasty. 🚲
Fände es toll, wenn ÖPNV günstiger oder kostenlos wird, bevor die Kraftstoffpreise gesenkt werden. Aber der ÖPNV ist ja in den meisten Regionen absichtlich so heruntergewirtschaftet worden, dass es ohnehin keine Kapazitäten für kleinste Anstiege bei den Fahrgastzahlen gibt.
Heck yes! Just filled in the final shipping survey for Jack the Bike Rack. Can’t wait to put it on my gravel bike. 🚲
Finished “Tiamat’s Wrath” again and finally begun listening to “Leviathan Falls”. Loved the prologue, it painted such a beautiful picture. 📖
Oh and don’t even get me started on how much I look forward to this.
So this is exciting.
Supplies for the upcoming daily driver rigid MTB. Looking forward to the build. Everything else I need I already have in the workshop. 🚲
Christian Stöcker im Spiegel: “Putins globale Rechte demaskiert sich selbst”
Ein Rundumschlag, der anschaulich die Verbindungen zwischen Putin, den diversen gut vernetzten rechtsradikalen und rechtsextremen Bewegungen rund um den Globus, und rechten Medien aufzeigt.
Thought long and hard about selling my Nordest Sardinha II frameset, wheels, and other parts once the titanium Britango arrives. Instead I’m going to make it into a rugged ATB/commuter with a front rack basket, mechanical brakes and low gearing for pulling our dog trailer. 🚲
This part of Nicholas Weaver’s lecture on cryptocurrencies captures my misgivings about them and NFTs really well: it’s an expensive, destructive, and inefficient solution for something that didn’t need solving.
This YouTube channel is so strangely satisfying:
Right Choice Shearing
This is really cool. Love it when companies tackle customisation for people who are out of the norm when it comes to bike sizing and fit. 🚲
Bikerumor.com: Bikes for people with disproportionate dwarfism: introducing the Islabikes Joni
Went out for a really fun ride on Wednesday. The climb almost killed my legs but it was worth it for the views, the sun I got to soak up, and the descent. Oh and there was about 1 km of hike-a-bike because all-road tyres and snow don’t mix. 🚲 📷
I still find it astounding how FedEx is able to transport a package from Bend, Oregon to Freiburg i. Br., Baden-Württemberg in two days.
And then on the other hand, a parcel coming from Finland will take at least four days to arrive.
Really enjoying the seamlessness of Apple Fitness+. I can use the iPhone or iPad for the exercises, or even send image and sound to my TV. All connected to the Apple Watch.
Well-made argument for PressFit bottom brackets on the BikeRadar youtube channel.
I’ve had massive problems with PF30 on a Canyon aluminium CX bike that I no longer own but on my two Litespeed bikes, it’s been problem-free for years. I do like BSA, though. 🚲
Molly White’s “Web3 is going just great” is a daily source of headshaking, laughter, and Schadenfreude for me.
Apple has a worthwhile meditation session in Fitness+ to practice awareness of Black History. Enjoyed it. When asked to think of a well-known Black person, my mind immediately went to Nichelle Nichols.
This had me in stitches. Adele cracking up, trying to keep it together while Kate McKinnon and Heidi Gardner deliver outrageous lines with ease, was golden.
Achievement unlocked:
I was able to use the “emotional damage” meme organically in a work conversation in Slack recently.
This court decision is so exciting: GDPR enforcer rules that IAB Europe’s consent popups are unlawful
Jokes Seth Can‘t Tell: Black History Month, Dolphins Enjoy Lesbian Sex
The throw-away pickle line sent me.
Stephen Diehl: How to destroy Bitcoin
Loving this. Yes please. I have little against crypto currencies (apart from the stupefying environmental impact, of course) but if they are as legitimate as proponents claim they are, regulation should be no problem.
When you made a bunch of cool modifications to your gravel bike 🚲 and badly want to take it out for a ride but the weather outside is frightful. 😭
I really don’t understand the hate that some people direct at Specialized. All of the stuff I have from them performs well. Their gravel tyres in particular (Pathfinder Pro & Sawtooth) have been nothing but great. 🚲
Watched this segment on Colbert and came away very glad that I’ve never cared about fashion and my personal style has always been centered around comfort, function, and longevity of the individual items.
Cycling PSA:
If you enjoy @iamspecialized “Purist” bottles (water has no discernible plastic taste and the water flow is excellent) but do not appreciate the exposed mouthpiece, a “Camelbak Podium Mud Cap” can solve that problem.
I know nothing about Moon Knight. Haven’t read a single comic about the character. This trailer looks intriguing, though. Will be watching.
My new mountain bike build is taking shape. I‘ll be waiting a while for the frame but the small parts are all here, so is the suspension fork, the wheel set is ordered and I just got a great deal on a spider-based power meter. 🚲
Sachmängelhaftung bei Privatverkäufen wirksam ausschließen
Seit dem 1. Januar 2022 gelten in Deutschland neue gesetzliche Vorschriften hinsichtlich der Sachmängelhaftung bei Privatverkäufen. Da ich aktuell viele gebrauchte Dinge im Netz verkaufe und mir nie sicher war, welche Formulierung einen Haftungsausschluss darstellt und wie ich klar machen kann, dass Rücknahme und Umtausch ausgeschlossen sind, habe ich mich auf die Suche gemacht und wurde relativ schnell in diesem Artikel von Stiftung Warentest fündig: Privatverkauf im Internet — Haftung ausschließen als Verkäufer
Die Quintessenz ist, dass bei mehrfachen Verkäufen von Gebrauchtware nur die folgende Formulierung einen wirksamen Haftungsausschluss darstellt:
Ich schließe jegliche Sachmängelhaftung aus. Die Haftung auf Schadenersatz wegen Verletzungen von Gesundheit, Körper oder Leben und grob fahrlässiger und/oder vorsätzlicher Verletzungen meiner Pflichten als Verkäufer bleibt uneingeschränkt.
Wichtig hierbei ist eine genaue Beschreibung des Artikels und eventueller Makel und Mängel, sonst haftet der Verkäufer weiterhin.
Interessant ist auch—und das wusste ich nicht—dass bei Privatverkäufen grundsätzlich kein Recht auf Rücknahme, Minderungen, und Umtausch besteht. Ich denke ich werde dies aber weiterhin dazu schreiben.
Ich glaube es, wenn ich es sehe, aber ja, bitte.
Tagesschau: E-Prototyp von Mercedes, 1000 Kilometer mit einer Batterieladung
Yes please! 😍
Ready | The Book of Boba Fett | Disney+
Die Lieferung von @BenteliciousArt aus ihrem Laden bentsy.shop ist angekommen. Endlich haben diese Vögelchen auch bei mir ein Zuhause gefunden.
Alice Fraser is back from parental leave (sorta) and has been on the last two episodes of The Bugle (my favourite podcast). Give it a listen, you won’t be disappointed. I laughed myself fuzzy.
7 October 2022… really Sony? I have to wait this long for the movie? Way to start the hype machine early. 😫 Ah well, I’ll wait because the first one had instantly become one of my favourite movies and I must’ve watched it more than 10 times now.
So many borbs are visiting our garden today. We‘ve already had to refill the feeding sites and it’s not even noon.
It amuses me how many of the reels Instagram suggests to me are either thirst traps or by accounts trying to create “viral” posts.
Da. Bitte. Und Gestern.
EU-Kommission will Scheinselbstständigkeit stoppen
Die Gig-Economy gehört permanent disrupted.
Watching the latest episode of Hawkeye. The musical cue when Clint talks about Natasha broke my heart. #hawkguy
Very excited for this movie. Matrix Resurrections – Official Trailer 2
Ah, the fun of using a small project as an excuse to buy some good tools.
These are hardened metal drills in sizes 1 mm to 10 mm in 0.5 mm increments for everything from copper to titanium.
I had totally missed this instalment of “Jokes Seth Can’t Tell” two months ago. It is good.
Fuck ey. Was ein brutaler Take Down von Mai Thi Nguyen-Kim durch Sarah Bosetti. Da kannste dich nicht von erholen. Alter.
Since the PlayStation 5 won’t be available at sane prices for a while and I really want to watch a few BluRays, I just ordered a 4K BluRay player. I actually found one by LG that doesn’t have a network connection at all (UBK80). Just a simple player. Love it.
Amber Ruffin on the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse.
I sincerely hope the prosecution is going to appeal the verdict because this degree of injustice is hard to accept.
Update: THIS!
![](https://photos.smugmug.com/ https://photos.smugmug.com/Geteilte-Alben-und-content-delivery/n-XxcfNJ/Blog/i-Rk9wVLc/0/90d66a3c/X4/counterpoint-2021_11_23-dinner_is_served_edition-X4.jpg “Cartoon by Rob Rogers for Counterpoint. The left half with the caption “When a young white man leaves his house” shows Kyle Rittenhouse walking with his AR-15 assault rifle, the legs of his two victims surrounded by blood in front of him, and a speach bubble with the text “I can cross state lines, kill people with my AR-15 and be lauded as a self-defense hero!” The right panel has the caption “When a young black man leaves his house” above a picture of a graveyard with the thought bubble “I can be murdered for jogging!” next to a tombstone for Ahmaud Arbery.")
Pedaled my bike up to the Hundsrücken (at 1234 m) on Saturday. It was foggy down in the valley but above 700 m the sky was mostly clear. I got to see atmospheric inversion live for the first time in my life. 📷 🚲
Pumpkin soup is always just a little bit tastier the day after it was cooked. Just like a good curry or chili.
Ordered a @hammerheadrides Karoo 2 cycling computer/GPS. They have a neat trade-up offer until 30 Nov, where I can get € 150.— for my 1st generation Karoo. Looking forward to it. Thanks to frequent updates, Karoos have been getting consistently better over the years. 🚲
I do enjoy finding vanishing point lines. 📷 The light was nice and contrast-y during my long walk with the dogs today.
That strange feeling of accomplishment having reduced the number of open tabs in Safari on my iPhone from 274 to 92. 🤷🏻♂️
It’s Transgender Awareness Week, so here’s a good thread from last year put together by Netflix about The Matrix by trans writers and critics. Really cool stuff. 🏳️⚧️
I‘ve been enjoying the number of variety of birds in our garden since temperatures dropped and more birds make use of our feed stations. So it’s time to share this important article again:
Audubon Society: What’s the Difference Between a ‘Borb’ and a ‘Floof’?
Saw this on instagram yesterday and laughed hard. I love raccoons but this one is my daemon.
Prepare a quick post linking to a video and write „BIPOC people“.
🤦🏻♂️😶🙄 Nevermind me, I‘ll be in that corner drinking some chai tea.
Ok, this is a design mock-up. Phew.
If it hadn’t been that, I needed it to be an article on The Onion, because frankly, I have no trouble seeing Silicon Valley Bros think this may be the next big disruption and investing millions.
(Found via Carl T. Bergstrom on Twitter.)
Ach und nur mal so, weil alles hier stimmt und es viele immer noch nicht gerafft haben.
Futility, unresisted. 🖖
Comic “Assimilate” by Zach Weinersmith on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
🚲 Bikepacking.com: Alexander Houchin and her custom Chumba Sendero
Another good read about a bike race, a really cool single-speed rig, and an amazing woman.
🚲 Lael Wilcox has a way with words and really knows how to sell you on a trip.
The Radavist: Team Tourist in the French Alps’s Bostan Refuge
Loving this. More accountability from companies when they want their talking points reported in the media.
Sally Lisa Starken auf Twitter:
Mal ehrlich:
Wir alle wissen, warum der § 218 nicht ins StGB gehört. Wir alle wissen, dass es seit 150 Jahren allein nur um die Macht geht, wer über den Körper einer Frau entscheiden darf.Wir alle wissen, dass eine progressive Ampel das auch wissen muss.
Volle Zustimmung meinerseits.
Jo, dann kann die Luca App endlich in die Tonne, oder? Wäre Zeit.
Kontaktverfolgung: Corona-Warn-App kann mit QR-Codes der Luca-App einchecken
Really worthwhile Twitter thread explaining how the scam that is NFTs works. Enjoyable, too.
Saw this as posted on Twitter and laughed hard. It’s perfection.
Me trying to apply new handlebar tape perfectly:
Me just trying to do a decent wrapping job with used handlebar tape while swapping drop bars:
🚲
That was a fun ride on Sunday. Even though I did manage to crash hard for the first time in two years. 🚲
Just deleted my Facebook account. Hadn’t used it in years but it was finally time. 30 days until deletion is permanent.
And now for some 🚲 #BikePorn…
Kosuke Masuda’s Custom Specialized S-Works Aethos
If you want a more detailed look at the bike, check out the feature on The Radavist.
Habe gestern Abend die Abenteuer Erde Dokumentation “Eichhörnchen, Chipmunk, Ziesel & Co” des WDR angeschaut. War überraschend, lustig, und einfach schön.
Made this dish yesterday. Turned out amazingly. (Substituted butter for vegetable oil to keep it vegan.)
Yes please, I want one! 🚲
Bikerumor: Storck x PodBike Frikar affordable enclosed e-bike velomobile to replace your car
The new MacBook Pro design language feels like a mix of the current unibody machines, with the silhouette of the current iPad Pro, and a distinct callback to the pre-2008 non-unibody design.
I like it, a lot.
Held an old iPad 2 again recently. It reminded me forcefully how much of a difference display lamination made to the feeling of interacting with content directly.
To quote my friend Zak Kaufman:
Nolan’s Batman: no, darker
Snyder’s Batman: come on, darker!
This: holy shit
A set of Star Trek-themed stickers arrived today and I‘m loving them. Already stuck one onto my gravel bike. 🖖🚲
I have an intense dislike for wire bead tyres. Had to switch a pair to a different set of rims this morning and it was torturous. 🚲
I went on a bit of an Etsy shopping spree 😁 in a shop called PeculiarPennants after finding a nice “United Federation of Planets” vinyl sticker there.
One of the silliest scenes in the Kung Fu Panda movies and one of my absolute favourites.
„I see you like to chew…“
ERMAHGERD! The Star Trek Discovery season 4 trailer has been released! 🖖
Let’s fly ✨ #StarTrekDiscovery #StarTrek https://t.co/NUVqZXAdrS pic.twitter.com/ZqJvodfqft
— Star Trek (@StarTrek) October 9, 2021
Sieht so aus, als ob N26 mit deren Plänen für Krypto-Währungen ernst macht. Werde also früher oder später mein Konto auflösen müssen. Fast ein Bisschen schade.
Sauber. Sau geil. Endlich. Und verdammt nochmal ja!
Netzpolitik.org: Polizei darf bei Einsätzen im öffentlichen Raum gefilmt werden
Toller Artikel: “Schafft den Schulranzen ab!” von Bent Freiwald
Schwere Schulranzen waren zu meiner Grundschulzeit problematisch und teuer. Ich werde meinen Eltern trotzdem ewig für meinen Littlefoot-Schulranzen inklusive passendem Mäppchen dankbar sein.
Really worthwhile article in Slate: Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning
I almost drowned twice as a child. I was lucky to have had lifeguards around me who knew what was happening.
Wanted an insulated bike bottle. Decided to use the purchase to add another splash of colour to my bikes. 🚲
Liebe Grünen, bitte macht eine progressive, auf CO2-Ausstoß und Gewicht basierende Kfz-Steuer in den Koalitionsverhandlungen zur Bedingung. Moderiert von strenger Bedarfskontrolle: Landwirte, Menschen mit Behinderung, etc. = günstig; SUV/Limousine für Außentermine = prohibitiv.
These arrived yesterday and all I can say is, „Moo-gie!“
(If you heard this in Rom‘s voice in your head, you’re one of my people. 🖖 )
Art by Will Burrows (@dwight_tokem on Twitter)
🚲 I just backed JACK The Bike Rack on @kickstarter www.kickstarter.com/projects/…
Two reviews from places I trust:
www.youtube.com/watch
bikepacking.com/gear/jack…
Hi! Ich melde mich heute mal als Autofahrer (… Hmm? Oh, einen Subaru Forester, danke der Nachfrage.)
Ich bin für generelles Tempo 130 auf Autobahnen, Tempo 30 in Ortschaften, und gegen den Abriss historischer Gebäude für den sinnfreien Neubau von Autobahnen.
Just used the new @1Password × @Fastmail Masked Email feature while setting up a Garmin Connect account. I’ve been creating randomised email aliases in Fastmail manually for years and frankly love having this automation going forward.
Alleine diese klare Aussage macht Bearbock zu einer besseren Wahl für das Amt der Kanzlerin als Scholz und Laschet. Leute, geht wählen und verschwendet eure Stimme nicht auf CDU, SPD, oder eine der kleinen und radikalen Parteien.
I may be squarely planted in Apple’s ecosystem but ever since the Surface Pro 3, I feel like Microsoft has eclipsed them in hardware design language. The Surface Laptop Studio is just the latest bold execution. I want it but running macOS.
The more things I try with this bike the more I like it. It’s so versatile and dependable.
A few weeks ago it was a touring bike, lately it’s been my commuter, and now I’ve prepared it for a gravel rallye. 🚲
Eben bei @fidepus auf Instagram gesehen. Nee ja doch, tolles Lied und ich stimme vollkommen zu.
ZSK – Alle meine Freunde [… hassen die AfD.]
The 6th episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks was hilarious, as expected. For a second I thought they used the scream of the goat [from a viral video from a few years back (think: Taylor Swift × Goat)](think: Taylor Swift × Goat) for the slimy slug that ate Tendi. 🖖
Am Sonntag ist Bundestagswahl. Die Grünen sind nicht perfekt, stellen aber aktuell unsere beste Chance dar, die Klimakatastrophe und den Rechtsruck zu bekämpfen.
Lasst uns alle ein Signal senden, Grün wählen und dann dafür sorgen, dass sie halten, was sie versprochen haben.
Just saw this as a photo on Twitter:
The concept of virginity was created by men who thought their penises were so important, it changes who a woman is.
Holy shit, if this isn’t the truth.
Habe im Gartencenter Servietten gefunden und musste sofort an @BenteliciousArt denken. Da fehlt einfach was.
I really like seeing ABS braking innovation for bicycles. Anything that makes cycling, particularly e-assisted cycling safer and more approachable for people is a good thing, in my mind. 🚲
With the pre-order time coming up, the big question remains: which colour will I pick for the iPhone 13 Pro Max, considering that I plan on keeping it for the next 4 to 5 years?
In my continuing search for pants that work well and look good on the bike and off and don’t disintegrate quickly, I just ordered two models from the Swiss company Riding Culture based on a preview by the German site MTB News. I hope they fit. 🚲
Two articles about the “Migration Gravel Race” (which happened a while ago) that I enjoyed. 🚲
Bikepacking.com: SIX PERSPECTIVES ON THE 2021 MIGRATION GRAVEL RACE IN KENYA
The Radavist: No Word for Stranger: the Migration Gravel Race – Fail 4
They are actually trying to capture the Matt Fraction version of Hawkeye in a TV series. Holy hell. I’m here for it.
Like a trip down memory lane:
Every Default macOS Wallpaper – in Glorious 6K Resolution
Cory Doctorow: End of the line for Uber
Really nice write up, capturing the state of Uber and very likely other companies in the 🍆🍆 sharing economy 🍆🍆 (and yes, those are dick quotes). These companies need to cease to exist.
Just installed the Atkinson Hyperlegible font on my site and I really like the look of it. Not only that but I also get a bit of fixed-width gylph styling as a bonus.
Washington Post: Raising the steaks: First 3-D-printed rib-eye is unveiled
I know there’s a lot of fluff and marketing bullshit surrounding this new industry and its products but I honestly cannot wait for ethically sourced, environmentally sound, healthy, cultured meat.
This cropped up in my social media again and it’s too fun not to share:
The Case of the Top Secret iPod
This should be filed under "duh" but sadly we're not there, yet: gender-neutral language changes culture
Wired: Actually, Gender-Neutral Pronouns Can Change a Culture
Using the example of how the gender-neutral word “hen” changed perception and culture in Sweden, the authors of the article go through various issue that exist with making gender-neutral language the default.
As I read the article, I realised how much the use of the singular they/them is ingrained in my vocabulary at this point, thanks to amazing friends and colleagues who helped me educate myself on this topic.
It also made me wonder how I handle this in German, my native language.
I speak English every day and for a living. It makes using gender-neutral pronouns and more inclusive language easy; with the exception of androcentric words, gender typically doesn’t seep into the nouns themselves, unlike in German.
Thinking about this a bit, I tend to avoid pronouns in writing and speaking whenever possible but it can lead to less elegant and sometimes downright unwieldy sentences.
It led me down a rabbit hole filled with lots of variations of the same question on popular question/answer platforms “Wie kann they/them im Deutschen erwendet werden?” (How can they/them be used in German?) and eventually to a section in a German Wikipedia article on the topic, which was pretty good as an overview: Nicht-binäre Geschlechtsindentität - Das singuläre Pronomen “they”
The recommendations from various institutions and entities listed there are pretty good starting points but something about the use of neopronouns in German doesn’t yet manage to penetrate my skull. In the latest season of Star Trek: Discovery, there’s an amazing non-binary character and in the English audio, they/them is used. In German the translators went with “dey/dem” and it felt jarring to my ears. Illi Anna Heger published a broader discussion of this topic, highlighting various examples of German translations of they/them in German synchronisations and subtitles. Really worth a read.
I’m intensely curious which pronouns are going to become established norm for gender-neutral language in German and Im glad to see that even large organisations are starting to attempt using more inclusive language in their daily business. It would definitely be nice for an institution like the Duden (think: Merriam Webster in Germany) to throw their weight behind one of the neopronouns.
Hach ja, mal wieder einen potentiellen Käufer auf eBay Kleinanzeigen abbekommen, der versucht mich passiv-aggressiv davon zu überzeugen, meine Ware zu einem lächerlichen Preis abzugeben. Nöööp!
Free "Atkinson Hyperlegible" font by the Braille Institute
I just found a post by Jason Kottke in my starred items in Reeder about a free font published by the Braille Institute called “Atkinson Hyperlegible”, designed specifically with high legibility in mind.
This is a really cool initiative and a great way to make a site easier to read for visually impaired persons, using unambiguous characters without having to resort to an excellent, modern mono-space font like Anonymous Pro.
You can read about the thoughts behind the font and the advantages in the summary PDF of the institute.
It’s available on Google fonts and I’ll be integrating it into my site tomorrow.
Es ist 2021 und in mengenweise Restaurants und Cafés rund um den Bodensee musste ich mit Papier- und Münzgeld zahlen. Ich war allerdings erfreut, dass diese Orte zumindest schonmal fließendes Wasser und Toiletten mit Anschluss an die Kanalisation hatten.
This company keeps impressing me: Hammerhead Partners with Justin Williams and L39ION of Los Angeles
Happy to see them sign such an important and transformative cycling team.
Fujifilm is going to announce a slew of new camera stuff today and I‘m so giddy because they’re said to announce a mark II of my favourite lens, the XF23mmF1.4 R adding faster focusing and weather sealing. I really hope they keep the optical characteristics the same, though.
I just noticed again how some electric cars sound similar to electric and flying cars shown in movies over the years and I’m loving it.
Oh and just FYI, Tom Hiddleston’s “Owen Wilson as Loki” impression is 👨🍳💋
Genialer Twitter-Thread von Stephan Anpalagan zum Niedergang der CDU und der Axel-Springer-Presse.
I know the Olympics are over but I found this comic in an open tab and it made me giggle all over again. How I wished this was the case.
While I like the feel of the Fabric silicone handle bar tape, even closely wrapped it doesn’t provide nearly as much cushioning as the Specialized S-Wrap HD. No handle bar tape I’ve tried over the past three years beats the Specialized for gravel use for me. 🚲
“Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” will be in theatres next week, “The Eternals” on 5 November, and “Spider-Man: No Way Home” on 17 December. Really, really excited for all three of those movies.
Jom of Gravel Cyclist took some time to build up a 1989 Specialized Rock Combo, one of the original gravel bikes, and quite close to its original spec. Such a nice bike and so capable. 🚲
A couple of rides later, I’m not hating the fenders. Still getting used to how it looks on the gravel bike but it’s not bad. 🚲
Working from a café in Staufen im Breisgau and whew they do not mess around with the espresso here. Impressive stuff.
Fender-ised Battle Cat (my gravel bike) with SKS Bluemels Longboard today. Installing these is an indescribably massive faff and I will wait a few rides before trimming the stabilising rods. Still, I’m not hating the look so far. Coverage should be great. 🚲
Hello spider fren!
(This is a female wasp spider I found in one of the higher patches of gras in our garden this morning. I had never seen this kind of spider before today. Apparently they’re now common in Germany due to climate change.)
Eben die Meldung gesehen, dass 1,5 °C Erderwärmung bereits 2030 erreicht werden und mal wieder gedacht:
Im September müssen CDU und SPD aus der Regierung geworfen werden. Grüne wählen und dann wachsam bleiben. #NieMehrCDU
Ryan Reynolds cracks me up: “Next Level Reynolds”
Im Wartebereich vor den Behandlungskabinen im Freiburger Impfzentrum läuft auf einem Fernseher ein Infofilm über die Notwendigkeit und Vorteile einer Impfung gegen COVID.
🤨 🤔 Ähm… ich glaube die Leute, die hier sind haben das schon kapiert.
I‘ve said it before and I‘ll say it again, I deeply enjoy it when @MrNishKumar loses his shit laughing on a podcast. This time on the latest episode of @HelloGarglers.
Ich wohne jetzt seit über einem Jahr im Raum Freiburg i. Br. und ich bin verwundert und enttäuscht, dass ich immer noch keine Kaffeerösterei gefunden habe, die Mondo del Caffè annähernd das Wasser reichen kann.
This thread is old but whatever. A compilation of all the reasons Deep Space Nine was the best Star Trek series. TNG will always be my favourite but to me DS9 is undeniably the best. 🖖
Got a pet groomer video flushed into my YouTube recommendations this morning and I‘ve been trying to recall when I last bathed our dogs. I honestly cannot remember. 🐕
Nur damit ich mir das merken kann: Die @CDU paktiert wissentlich mit Faschisten. Cool. Cool. Cool.
Maaßen wird geduldet und statt aktiv gegen den Rechtsextremisten Höcke zu stimmen, will die CDU Thüringen sich enthalten. Da gehen bei mir echt alle Alarmglocken an.
Ne kleine lokale Sache:
Ich habe meine Meinung zum Toom-Baumarkt revidieren müssen. Der Toom in Freiburg Nord hat bei Stahlwaren, Werkzeug, und Gartenmöbeln ein besseres Sortiment als Obi und Bauhaus zusammen. Ich war ehrlich überrascht. Toom war bisher nicht auf meinem Radar.
The Bugle hit episode 200 since its relaunch: „Flare in the Derrière“ (4200)
Congratulations to Andy and all of the cohosts!
Totally convinced that @aliterative watches @StephenAtHome by the way she pronounced „space news“ on the latest, absolutely brilliant episode of The Gargle.
I am so here for Simon‘s willingness to do silly stuff. Even more so for his ability to wear Manon‘s hot pants and like they are a part of him. 🚲
Mal ganz deutlich:
Verantwortlich für das Ausmaß der aktuellen Katastrophe ist die CDU/CSU & SPD und deren klimafeindliche Politik der letzten 16 Regierungsjahre.
Listened to “I want my MCU TV – 19: Loki E5: Journey into Mystery” in anticipation of the final episode of this season of Loki. As you do.
Spent most of yesterday working in and around the garden. Just before noon the light was perfect for some handheld macro-ish close-ups. 📷
(Fujifilm X-T3, 90 mm ƒ/2 lens, 16 mm macro extension tube)
Tiff Stevenson interviews Gina Yashere on her podcast Tiny Revolutions. Very much worth a listen.
Absolutely loving the latest episode of The Last Post: Non-believers and the future, where @aliterative and @AlisonSpittle critically discuss „Home Alone“ and Alice has a brilliant #HAGOW bit.
Wir haben einen Koriander im Garten der seit einer Woche blüht. Bienen lieben die Pflanze. Und ich will einfach nur wissen zu welcher Imkerei die gehören, damit ich den Honig kaufen kann. 🐝🍯
Saw the cloud cover during a walk with the dogs. Rushed home to grab my camera and bike. Cycled up one of the valleys in the vicinity. Took photos. 📷
Tiff Stevenson interviews Andy Zaltzman on her podcast Tiny Revolutions
Utterly great comedian Tiff Stevenson last week had had Andy Zaltzman on her podcast, where she interviews various comedians and artists about the tiny revolutions in their lives. The conversation these two had is brilliant and features a lot of history of The Bugle, which has been my favourite podcast for almost 13 years.
I honestly find it hard to express how much joy The Bugle has brought me. I first found it by accident in late 2008 when I was in a bit of a stand up comedy show discovery phase while studying in Beijing. It popped up in the recommendations in Apple Podcasts and after the first listen, I was hooked.
When John Oliver left because, as Andy tells it, it just wasn’t possible to do Last Week Tonight and a weekly transatlantic podcast, I was gutted and very sad but obviously kept listening. The reimagined show, where Andy is joined by two correspondents every week, has been, in my opinion, the best thing that could’ve happened. I’d still love to see John Oliver return every now and then but the roster of people Andy is bringing on from around the world, all of them with their own perspectives, is hard to beat.
I was introduced to so many extremely funny comics: first and foremost Alice Fraser, as well as (and in no particular order) Tiff Stevenson, Nish Kumar, Aditi Mittal, Josh Gondleman, Anuvab Pal, Charlie George, James Nokise, Felicity Ward, Alison Spittle, and many, many more.
There are alerady two spin-offs, both hosted by Alice Fraser:
The Gargle, in which Alice and guests tackle anything that isn’t political news, and The Last Post, The Bugle from a parallel universe.
If you like satire, sillyness, and can handle puns, check out The Bugle and its sister shows. I’ll see you again in about 9 months, once you reemerge from the binge cave. 😁
Woke up with the most random song stuck in my head: „Misty Mountains“ from The Hobbit
People, Emmy Blotnick.
I was lucky to see her live in NYC a couple of years back. Laughed myself fuzzy.
Fun (mostly) gravel ride, even if I didn't complete the 100 miles 🚲
I tried myself at an imperial century (100 miles) along the Rhine but had to admit defeat about 100 km into the ride. The weather was brilliant and brilliantly hot and humid. Instead of pushing myself too hard, I decided to veer off to the east and head to the next station to catch a train back home.
The gravel along the Rhine is perfection; small pebbles and dust. It was easy to find a good cadence and just glide along.
In places the water meadows along the Rhine reminded me of a bike ride I did in the Everglades, which felt very strange.
This was also my first attempt at finding out what works for me in terms of gear and bike setup for longer outdoor rides.
- Basic drivetrain setup was 46/30 gearing in the front, an 11–30 cassette in the back. This was perfect and the tight gear spacing in the higher gears allowed me to find the optimal cadence almost all the time.
- The tyres (WTB Nano 40) were overkill. I wanted to ride on my other wheelset shod with the Specialized Sawtooth 700×38c but I found two loose spokes on each wheel two days before and couldn’t have them checked out before the ride. Went with my more roudy wheelset because I simply didn’t want to deal with the hassle of swapping tubeless tyres for this ride. This slowed me down considerably on roads but on the other hand made for very comfortable, dare I say supple, riding on gravel.
- I brought 2.5 l of water, knowing that I’d be able to refill along the way and I was happily surprised that the bottle carrier attachment on the Specialized saddle held up even over rougher sections. That said, the titanium cages let go off my bottles twice. I think for this holder, I’ll need cages that have their opening to the side.
- The Muc-Off dry lube that I put on the chain held up really well but I should’ve taken some with me, because by kilometer 80 it was pretty much gone.
- The aero arm rest (the ridiculously named Profile Design “Airstryke”) was such a good choice for this ride, even despite my doofidity of not getting my body reacquainted with this riding position before attempting a 100+ km tour. Still, the ambundance of hand and body positions was definitely welcome.
- The first generation Hammerhead Karoo worked perfectly as always. This thing continues to impress.
- The two bags I’ve used (both from Road Runner Bags) did their job and I think I’ve packed well.I should’ve brought more snacks for this ride, both sweet and savoury. I didn’t encounter nearly enough shops and restaurants along the route I had built.
In the end I rode 122 km. Just ~ 7 km shy of the 129 km I pedaled during the Zwift Uber Pretzel virtual ride earlier this year. I was properly exhausted after but not completely destroyed, which made me happy.
Once temperatures cool down a bit, I’ll try the 100 miles again. I think all the reading I’ve done on Bikepacking.com, The Radavist, and Gravel Cyclist has had me pretty well prepared and the only things I’ll have to change before the next ride are going to be the tyres and the amount of snacks I bring for this route.
Got into a bad mood yesterday and decided to watch some comfort food TV, which ended up being the Ahsoka episode of The Mandalorian. I honestly can’t wait for the Ahsoka TV series.
A wonderfully written and terribly Fernweh-inducing article about bikepacking the Haul Road in Alaska. 🚲
Just read the review of the Beats Studio Buds on The Verge. Seem to be decent earphones but it still irks me massively that none of the wireless buds have batteries replaceable by the manufacturer. As long as that’s not an option, I’m not buying wireless buds again.
TIL that one of @levarburton‘s favourite childhood sweets in Germany were “Lakritz-Schnecken“.
If you’re a Star Trek fan, go and listen to @gates_mcfadden‘s podcast „InvestiGates“. It’s so good. 🖖
The dumpster fire that is NFTs keeps on giving. This explanation is the best I’ve come across so far.
Found via Ketan Joshi on Twitter.
Really interesting front rack for bicycles coming to Kickstarter soon. Stainless steel hardware, tool-free mounting, decent load-bearing capabilities. I’ll be backing this one. 🚲
Masters of the Universe: Revelation | Official Teaser | Netflix
- WHOA!
- I wonder if He-Man is going to run like he did in the old cartoon; at a 20° angle to the ground.
Bikepacking.com has a bike porn/bike envy/“oooh, that’s a neat idea” round-up post of the rigs of the 2021 Tour Divide online. This kind of content is catnip for me. 🚲
This hits way too close to home. I earn more money right now than both my parents combined when they bought our house in 1994. There is zero chance that I’m able to afford a comparable place in a region I want to live in today.
Side note:
If someone has issues finding a well-fitting bicycle helmet because somehow there’s always pressure on your temples, I’ve had luck with both Bell/Giro and, as I found out this week, Scott. 🚲
Hey Apple, gute Aktion. Schade, dass ihr die Dinger überhaupt genutzt habt aber hey, wenigstens kommen sie jetzt weg.
heise.de: Apple will offenbar auf Tracking-Pixel in E-Mails verzichten
Wenn du den Status der Störung deiner Telekom-Internetverbindung prüfen willst und die Seite mit dem Störungsstatus eine Störung hat. 🤦🏻♂️
There’s no way I’m not going to watch Chris Harris review a pair of cars: Audi RS e-tron GT vs. BMW M5 CS. This sentence about the BMW got me:
What a magnificently pointless fast saloon car.
The future is electric and I’m here for it.
Beginning a super busy and rather exciting work day.
Looking forward to relaxing after work by giving my gravel bike and my mountain bike a proper cleaning.
Recent bike trip to one of the huts on one of the hills in the area. They had great vegetarian burgers. We worked hard for our dinner but it was worth it. 📷 🚲
ooooooh
Rumours point to Apple offering lossless streaming with Apple Music soon. Me likey. May switch to it from Deezer.
Schöner Kommentar von Thomas Fuster in der NZZ zum Einfluss des Zufalls auf den Erfolg.
This could be interesting.
The Nevers: Official Trailer | HBO
Jeff Wright in “How the Jury Reached a Verdict in the Chauvin Trial” on Late Night with Seth Meyers.
Succinct, accurate, and funny (in an exasperated kind of way) characterisation of the GOP by Seth Meyers in yesterday’s “A Closer Look” segment.
This beauty is going on my MTB tomorrow. Gotta say, Rotor make absolutely top-notch aluminium components. If this thing is half as good as the Rotor 3D30 crankset I‘ve been using on my gravel bikes for 3+ years, I‘m going to have fun with it for a long time. 🚲
Great post with basic brake setup tips for reducing arm pump when descending on a mountain bike by Jessie-May Morgan on Bikerumor. For a MTB newb like myself, this was quite helpful. 🚲
The presentation of this was a bit cringe-inducing but had a lot of sensible parts to it, too. I have to say: I’d buy one. Assuming decent range and longevity, this is the kind of vehicle I can see keeping for years.
This was delightful: Anthony Mackie, the new Captain America, interviewed by Stephen Colbert.
Lydia Schoch has a short but great article on her site about Star Trek as comfort food. I agree with all of it. And not just because I’ve essentially been re-watching all of Star Trek for the past year. 🖖
Almost broke of the tip of the right Race Face Next SL carbon crank arm during a ride today. There’s a big crack where the pedal thread is inserted in the carbon. Welp. Managed to limp back home. Back to aluminium for cranks for me. Rotor Kapic it is. 🚲
Listening to the latest episode of @HelloGarglers alone while in the car and immeditely after @aliterative made a lewd joke, I instinctively said out loud to no one in particular, „Family show, Alice.“
Marques Brownlee on the M1 iPad Pro in his 4/20 Apple event recap:
“But hey, at least good on Apple for not resting on their 30 million light years lead on performance specifically in tablets.”
😄 Made me chuckle and he’s right. My 2018 iPad Pro still feels overpowered.
Chris Harris drives the new Porsche 911 GT3 and he gets a bit melancholic. Can’t blame him, even though I look forward to a future with fewer cars and fewer emissions.
Going to corrosion-proof the inside of the Nordest Sardinha II’s steel frame today and sealing the dings in the paint it already has with nail polish. Contemplating whether to use the default glossy black, black with glitter, or the hot pink found in my tubeless valves. 🚲
Took my 90 mm ƒ/2 lens on the morning walk because the light was beautifully harsh. I wasn’t disappointed. 📷
Obligatory post of the latest “Amber Says What” segment on Late Night with Seth Meyers. (It’s a particularly good one.)
Finally, after swapping the front tyre and properly attaching the dropper post cable, I went out for a first ride on the Nordest Sardinha II 🚲 on Sunday. This may be just the New Toy Syndrome™ talking but I’m pretty impressed with the handling and climbing ability so far.
This is silly and delightful. I need jorts now. 🚲
I may be experiencing a bit of a 🚲 cycling midlife crisis brought on by the pandemic
Here’s what happened so far:
- I sold my CX-bike-turned-commuter a few months ago because its aluminium frame didn’t deal well with dragging a laden dog trailer.
- At roughly the same time, I bought an old and beautiful titanium MTB as a daily beater. The 120 mm stem and 540 mm wide handlebars felt supremely weird.
- Fitted the MTB with a shorter stem and moderately wide, 680 mm handlebars. That did the trick and the frankly over-engineered frame is much, much stiffer and has no problems when pulling the trailer.
- Side effect: I’ve been spending more time on a flat bar bike again and even though the overall geometry of the MTB is closer to my gravel bike than any remotely modern MTB, it still rides completely differently. And it’s fun. Damn.
- For a few weeks I’ve been alternating between the gravel bike and the MTB on similar rides. This had me remember how much I enjoyed the MTB riding position back in my youth. Damn again.
- But holy baloney, rim brakes are crap for challenging terrain. Even the top notch hydraulic ones on that thing. People did downhill with rim brakes?!?
- Started researching modern MTBs. Slack head tube angles and steep seat angles make for a bike that descends well and climbs well, you say? Interesting.
- That Nordest Sardinha II does look nice and seems to fit the bill. Not a rowdy enduro bike but theoretically more capable than a XC bike. So many mounts. This could be a blast for touring and confidence inspiring for the more technical rides I like to do. It’s steel and not titanium but maybe I can deal.
- Ah well, I didn’t have time to configure a complete bike anyway and I lack knowledge to gauge the suitability of MTB wheels and forks to build it up without braking the bank.
- Oh look, someone sells a Sardinha II in my size with everything but the saddle, pedals, and shift group. Checks spare parts cupboard. Yup, all here. Damn for a third time.
- Bought it.
- But what about the other bikes? Do I really need 4 bikes?
- Let’s see where this goes and maybe I’ll sell the old MTB and the road bike. The gravel bike should be able to do road just fine with the right tyres and cassette, right? Right? Where did I put that set of WTB Exposure 30 again?
So this is where I’m at.
I have a black Nordest Sardinha II standing behind me. Fitted it with a dropper post, my SRAM XO1 Eagle group, and I’m just waiting for a different front tyre and some small parts before I head out for the first ride on one of my go-to routes around here to see if this something I can see myself riding again.
The gravel bike will see its wheel sets changed up a bit: The WTB Nano 40 pneus will come off, to be replaced by the Exposure 30 and tubes for road riding. The 11–40 cassette will be swapped for either the 9–39 or the 11–32 I have in my workshop.
The Specialized Pathfinder Pro will stay on the second set of DT Swiss CR1600 wheels but fitted with tubes because I damaged one of the tyres in a way that tubeless sealant can’t fix. For typical gravel riding in dry conditions, these tyres are super capable.
It’s going to be an interesting riding season.
I finished this LEGO Land Rover Defender set two weeks ago and totally forgot to post some pictures. It was hands down one of the most satisfying builds I have ever done. So much detail, so many functioning and interacting parts.
Aus der Kategorie “Nein! Doch! Oh!":
Studie: No-Covid-Länder haben ihre Wirtschaft am besten geschützt
Ach was? Das war doch nicht abzusehen, dass ein konsequenter Schutz von Menschenleben besser für die Wirtschaft ist, als eine konsequent halbherzige Eindämmungsstrategie. 🙄
To my great delight, setting up the WTB Ranger (29"x2.6") tubeless on a Newmen SL A.35 rim was trouble-free and done in 15 min. Phew. Now🤞🏻 they hold air. I’ve not had much luck with WTB and tubeless setups until now. 🚲
Jeff Wright is just plain amazing.
Late Night with Seth Meyers: If the COVID-19 Vaccines Interviewed for a Job
Das durfte ich gerade beim Buchladen um die Ecke abholen. Freue mich schon sehr drauf, @BenteliciousArt.
My two dogs started properly changing their coats yesterday. Already this morning the floors look like the aftermath of a furry sex orgy.
So to the person who invented the Furminator: I salute you. This tool is what will keep the furpocalypse at bay for the coming weeks. 🐕
So I kinda, sorta ordered a dropper post for Battle Cat, my gravel bike. Wanted to keep it simple to check out if it benefits my riding, so I went with a Kind Shock Dropzone (the one w/o a remote). Didn’t have a taste to recable everything on my bike just to try it. 🚲
Wer hat unserer Bundesregierung und den Landesregierungen eigentlich ins Gehirn geschissen. 5 Tage „Lockdown“ über Ostern. WOW! Wie konsequent, wie vorrausschauend, wie innovativ! Wieso nicht mal 14 Tage alles zu machen? Langsam grenzt das an mutwilliger Körperverletzung.
This LEGO Technic Land Rover Defender set has so far been one of the most satisfying builds I’ve done. So intricate, so many functional moving parts. Just a pleasure.
Das Mitbringen von Kindern auf Demos durch Querdenker und andere Schwurbler, um diese als menschliche Schilde vor Wasserwerfern und einem rechtmäßigen Zugriff durch die Polizei zu nutzen = Kindesmisshandlung.
Found this in open tabs on my iPhone. I love it.
By Brasilian illustrator and comic book artist: atóxico
Just a friendly reminder that this exists.
Stumbled across this again and I can never not repost it.
NASA Releases Stunning Hi-Res Photos of Jupiter’s Swirling Atmosphere
A Twitter thread with pictures of animals interrupting wildlife photographers.
Well, Lightroom it was and Lightroom it is
Over the past few days I’ve been looking at potential alternatives to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom for my RAW processing and photo editing needs. It’s not that there’s a lot wrong with Lightroom, really. I’ve been using the applications, particularly those on iOS with satisfaction. With the renewal of my annual subscription coming up, I wanted to see what else is out there, at this point.
A few friends and acquaintances helped me with some recommendations and I took time to test them:
- Capture One Fujifilm surprised me with a decent UI and a significantly better rendering of Fujifilm RAF files than Lightroom. I’d read about that but didn’t think the difference would be this stark. Adobe should really do their homework there. Sadly, the macOS app was slow, slower than Lightroom. While that was disappointing, the complete lack of an iOS application disqualified it for me.
- Next up, I gave Affinity Photo a try and this app really shone for a number of reasons, including a very responsive user interface. The RAW renderer wasn’t as good for Fujifilm files as Lightroom’s, though. But the more important reason why I didn’t go deeper into it was the fact that this application is simply too much for my needs. It’s much closer to Photoshop than to Lightroom or Aperture (R.I.P Aperture 😢) and that’s overkill for me.
- The last one in the pack, Pixelmator Photo, has no macOS application. I can forgive that but it doesn’t read Fujifilm RAF files at all, which would mean I’d have to convert everything into DNG first. That’s a non-starter. It’s also an app that feels very similar to Affinity Photo. Since I have a licence for it anyway (as I do for every app the Pixelmator team have produced), it stays on my iPad for situations where Lightroom is too limited for a specific task.
It was good to see what the market currently offers and what I found was a) solid choices for different sets of needs and b) the realisation that Lightroom still fits my requirements best by
- having good, responsive iOS applications,
- an okay macOS offering,
- solid synchronisation of data and editing progress,
- decent if not perfect rendering of Fujifilm RAF files,
- and 1 TB of storage space, which works out as a very usable puzzle piece in my photo backup strategy.
If I had one wish for the Lightroom apps, it would be for Adobe to bring back geotagging. I miss this dearly from the classic Lightroom app.
John Oliver on Tucker Carlson, the performatively outraged wedge salad
I hate browsers masquerading as applications with a passion. At some point the user experience always breaks down.
This person made a Twitter client for Palm OS. It uses HotSync. Glorious.
Ich bin grad so stolz auf Siri. 🥲
Habe meinem iPhone eben eine Nachricht diktiert, in der ich das Wort „Dönerstag“ gesagt habe. Siri hat es völlig korrekt erkannt.
Improving my bike fit using a smart trainer: what I learned
TL;DR
- My saddle was too low because the method I used to determine saddle height didn’t work for me.
- I tried to overcompensate for what I perceived as excessive reach by moving the saddle forward. Moving it back instead and improving my posture worked a treat.
Backstory
In mid-December 2020 another half-hearted lockdown loomed in my region and there was a possibility that exercise outside might actually be prohibited. That made the decision to finally pull the trigger on a smart bike trainer easy and I was lucky enough to snag a mid-range model before they went out of stock in Germany.
I’ve been enjoying the smart trainer a lot and it’s helped me improve my many aspects of my cardiovascular fitness. Something I’ll write about at some point.
The other benefit the bike trainer brought with it, was the ability to slowly but steadily improve my bike fit on both my road bike and my gravel bike. It’s honestly had as much of, if not more of an impact on my riding as the marked improvement in fitness.
There are a lot of good resources for picking the right size of frame and dialling in the right position of the touch points on a bike, to achieve an optimal riding position. The three that have helped me the most since December are,
- “Bike Fit Tuesdays” on Francis Cade’s youtube channel,
- “Bike Fitting Series (with Neill Stanbury)” on Cam Nicholls’s youtube channel,
- And the article “How to Determine the Correct Saddle Height” on the site of the cycling retailer Mantel, oddly enough.
The big issue with attempting to try all of the advice thrown around is that it’s hard to do on the bike when out riding or not being able to pedal while sitting on the bike. That’s where the trainer came in really handy and I’d encourage anyone to either buy or rent one, if you want to improve comfort and efficiency on your bicycle1.
Side note:
Getting a professional bike fit has been something I considered to be something useful only for racers but I’ve come to change my mind and would now recommend getting one to anybody who either plans on buying a new bicycle or has issues with comfort on their current one.
So here’s what I learned
The resources I linked to above have loads of great information and greatly improved my understanding of how certain changes to a bike influence my riding position. The findings listed here came as a bit of a surprise to me, or were generally counterintuitive based on the information that is out there.
Moving my saddle back
James of Bicycle Richmond often mentions in the Bike Fit Tuesdays videos that many people buy bikes with excessive reach and then try to compensate for that by moving the saddle forward or hunching over the handlebars, which leads to all sorts of pains, mostly a lot of pressure on the hands and wrists.
Well for me it was a bit of a mixed bag. The bicycle frames I have are the right size, from what I can tell. I’ve already equipped my road bike and gravel bike with comparatively shorts stems (~ 7 cm) and the handlebars I use also have short reach figures. Still, I felt the need to use seat posts with no setback and moved the saddles forward, often as far as they went. I did so because of things I read about a good angle between torso and upper arms and a general impression of being too stretched out on my steeds.
The result has always been the aforementioned impression of riding on a stretcher even while I felt hunched over the handlebars and putting a lot of weight onto my hands and wrists. This in turn caused numbness in my hands, sometimes after only 20–30 min of riding. On the bike trainer, when I wasn’t shifting my position as often as I did riding outside, this effect was even more pronounced.
In one of the bike fitting videos I learned about hip position over the bottom bracket and how being too far forward could result in pains and less power output. I gave it a try, gradually moving the saddle back2 and carefully tilting it forward a bit. This resulted in me rotating my upper body downward and my hip forward.
I was honestly stunned by how suddenly my core muscles had an easier time supporting my upper body, less weight resting on the hands, and the bike feeling less long even though I technically increased the distance between the nose of my saddle and the handlebars.
Something was still a little off:
My saddle was too low
This realisation was the single biggest revelation to my riding comfort and equally importantly; my cycling efficiency.
One of the most commonly used methods to estimate/determine saddle height is the “heel method”, where you sit squarely on the saddle and place your heel on the pedal, with the leg fully extended. If you cannot extend the leg fully, move the saddle up. If you find that you’re rolling of the side of the saddle trying to extend the leg, move the saddle down until you sit securely on the saddle again.
I’ve been setting my saddle height using this method for years and it Turns Out™ that it doesn’t work for me.
Looking at a video my partner recorded, I noticed that in the lowest pedal position the underside of my foot was pretty much level with the ground and that the angle of my upper leg to my lower leg was larger than typically recommended.
After some reading, I discovered two methods for calculating saddle height (see the article linked above) and they gave me totally different numbers than the heel method and a new starting point for experimentation.
I gradually increased the height of my saddle and ended up with 3 cm more3. Honestly, that’s a lot. The effects of this modification were and are profound:
- I still feel perfectly planted on the saddle, perfectly secure sitting on the bike.
- In the lowest pedal position my heel now sits higher than my toes and my leg is extended further. This has led directly to my calf muscles being activated and me being able to put more power down.
- It made rotating my hip forward and my whole upper body downward even easier and even more comfortable.
Bonus: use a narrower saddle on a trainer
This one was a small but nice surprise.
At the beginning of my time with the smart trainer, I had specifically put a slightly wider saddle on my road bike thinking that the increased surface area would help spread the load I put on it, riding in a more static position than while out and about. After having already gone through the two steps above, I still felt some discomfort after a long time in the saddle on the trainer.
Looking for information, I stumbled across a video on the youtube cycling channel GCN where someone asked for advice with saddle sores/butt pain on a bike trainer. Their guidance was to use a narrower saddle than what one would typically use but obviously something that still supports the sit bones fully, to encourage more movement and better circulation while on a static trainer.
This bit of advice turned out to be bang-on for me and brought the desired improvement.
In conclusion
Using a bike trainer allowed me to cautiously experiment and eventually massively improve my bike fit. I was lucky in the sense that my bicycles have the right size and my basic assumptions about reach and stem length were correct. Honestly, I should’ve gotten a trainer (or better: a proper bike fit) a long time ago.
Cycling on my bikes now, I’m much more relaxed, able to put much more power down at the same perceived exertion, and long rides are more enjoyable because my bikes feel more comfortable.
On the gravel bike in tricky terrain there has been another positive side effect: due to the fact that I’m putting less weight onto the handlebars and being in a generally more balanced forward/aft position on the bike, I’m able to steer more nimbly. That gives me more confidence on technical climbs and descents and makes for a wildly improved and fun overall riding experience.
-
Another important part to this whole equation is being able to take videos of yourself on the bike trainer while pedalling (or having someone help you) while you wear tight-fitting clothing. It’s going to make it easier to check and analyse your riding position. ↩︎
-
At this point my saddles are set back about as far as they will go, a 2 cm change from before and I’m contemplating buying seat posts with built-in set back, to try if this will improve things further. ↩︎
-
Note that how far up or down you go with your saddle is also influenced by the overall mobility of your hips and lower back and you need to take that into consideration. ↩︎
Opened youtube. Saw a new Top Gear video with Chris Harris. Immediately began watching it. It’s about the new BMW M3. I have zero interest in this car and not a lot of interest in most sports cars. But it’s Chris Harris and he makes any car review worthwhile.
Bikepacking.com as a really cool feature up about the RAD WOMEN OF BIKEPACKING: PART TWO – MAKERS 🚲
My Adobe Creative Cloud subscription is set to renew in a few weeks and I was wondering if there’s a good alternative to it that works on macOS and iOS (iPadOS) with support for RAW files (I shoot Fujifilm). CaptureOne looks interesting but it’s only available for macOS.
Tyre woes, continued 🚲
On a ride on Saturday I damaged the rear tyre on my gravel bike. Looks like I was riding with too little pressure for the terrain.
At first I thought it was only a puncture and tried to repair that. It sealed easily enough but with that fixed, it quickly became clear that the rim tape was damaged as well and air was leaking out of a spoke hole. Great, just great.
So, off with the tyre, off with the old rim tape. I cleaned everything nicely and put on new rim tape, put the tyre back on, and some fresh Stan’s No Tubes Race Sealant in, pumped up the tyre and the second I hit 30 PSI, I had sealant spraying out of the side.
Turns Out™ that I did more damage to the tyre than I saw during the first two rounds of inspections. I created a 3 mm long slice in the tyre just above the hook of the rim (just to the right of the valve).
That’s a tricky spot and not even the typically dependable Stan’s sealant was able to close that one since there’s always movement in this area. Luckily the tyre seems to still be usable.
So over the next few days, I’ll have to clean all the sealant out, clean the inside of the mantle and reassemble everything with tubes. Not a big fan of it, because even running the very good Tubolito tubes will require me to ride with higher pressures compared to riding tubeless.
Ah well.
Side note:
This episode once again showed me how the DT Swiss CR1600 rims are close to bomb-proof. I have two pairs and over the years I’ve thrown serious abuse at them. Sure, they have a couple of scratches but both pairs still run absolutely true.
Ah, the joys of tubeless tyre maintenance. Where what you thought was a simple puncture obtained on a particularly rough bit of trail, requiring only some fresh sealant, instead reveals a punctured rim tape and the need to remove the old and carefully install new tape. 🚲
LOL, I just realised that the Enterprise NX-01 has “Florida Man” as its chief engineer.
I’m kind of ashamed to say that I forgot so much about the series. 🖖
Totally forgot the obligatory repost of the latest “Amber Says What” segment on Late Night with Seth Meyers.
Small setback for the daily beater 🚲 project: I needed a new stem and ordered a Ritchey Classic 220 stem because it was the only thing available in a polished aluminium look. Turns out it’s painted and has a milky enamel sheen to it. I‘ll have to sand and polish it off.
w00t!
Looks like I’ve managed to snag a set of signed deluxe versions of @MaryRobinette’s “Lady Astronaut” series. So cool. Looking forward to getting them.
Since Monday farmers have been spraying the fields around my place with liquid manure. It was impossible to escape the almost overpowering smell. Yesterday evening, after half a day of rain and some wind, I was finally able to air the flat again. Phew.
New (used) handlebars with a 68 cm width for the daily beater bike project arrived. The current ones are 53 cm wide on a 13.5 cm stem. That’s way too narrow and very stretched out. New 7 cm stem to arrive on Saturday probably. 🚲
Good on Peak Design for calling out Amazon’s shady practices with their “Amazon Basics” products. What Amazon built here is almost a carbon copy of the Peak Design Everyday Sling and is even called the same.
This review just makes me sad that the retailer I pre-ordered the lens at hasn’t yet called to tell me it’s in stock.
Oh and speaking of importing content from other platforms:
Stuff imported from Squarespace is a mess of div tags, specialised classes, and minified html. Compared to that the export from Ghost is downright clean and easy to manage.
I’m in the process of importing content from my previous blogs/sites to my Micro.blog page and I’m frustrated. Back years ago when I used Squarespace, I didn’t host images on a separate service and now those old images are all dead links.
You just gotta love Jeph Jacques for this kind of silliness:
Took possession of a roughly 25 years old MTB last week, to become my daily beater. Beautiful old piece of kit. What amuses me to no end, though, is how close the geometry resembles my modern gravel bike. Or rather the other way around. 🚲
Erect penises, like hope, spring eternal.
— Alice Fraser (@aliterative) on the first episode of The Gargle
Gah!
Setting up a bike to fit comfortably is so hard. Came away from a longer virtual ride with knee pain and two overly strained quadriceps. A bunch of research later I found out that my saddle was too low and that the “heel method” I always used doesn’t work for me. 🚲
Did anyone else listen to the advertising section in the first episode of @HelloGarglers and totally expect an ad for half a glass of water?
Perseverance rover successfully lands on Mars
How exciting was that? I followed this over the past couple of days and seeing the team at NASA erupt in cheers when the successful touchdown was confirmed warmed my heart.
Have a look for yourself.
Yesterday evening, NASA published a blog post that contains recordings from the surface of Mars made by Perseverance.
Listen to it and try not to smile. These are actual sounds from the another planet in our solar system.
I am so looking forward to the high-resolution images that will be coming from the rover going forward.
Image source: nasa.gov
And the above picture showing the Perseverance and Mars 2020 spacecraft components on the surface post landing just makes me want to reread (or rather re-listen) to “The Martian” by Andy Weir. Such an excellent book.
Hello old friends. Haven’t seen you in a while.
(The sandals, not my feet. I see those every day. Also: pasty legs alert.)
AWWW YISSS! The custom silicone sleeves for my Campfire Audio Andromeda earphones/IEMs are on their way. The manufacturer mentioned that based on the shape of the earphones and of my ears, they had to make the sleeves slightly larger. I hope they still fit without discomfort.
Per my post yesterday and via my friend @larsolsson:
Washington Post – Opinion: The massive GOP betrayal of our democracy requires a forceful Democratic response
I bet it’s going to take less than a month before McConnell and the GOP use the filibuster to block legislation.
🚲 This article definitely challenged my vague preconceptions about this region: North Caucasus: Bikepacking Russia’s Danger Zone
One thing that’s become apparent to me during the impeachment trial in the senate, is that going forward the Democratic Party needs to understand the entire GOP as enemies of democracy and treat them accordingly. The only unity the GOP will accept is unconditional surrender.
I realised again—maybe it’ll stick this time—that I like the idea of stickers on tech but not actually having stickers on it. The Black Lives Matter sticker is going to remain the only one on the Magic Keyboard. I don’t think I mind them on my paper notebook, though.
Ich bin mir sicher jemand anderes hat diesen Witz schon gemacht aber mir kam das heute morgen beim Frühstück und ich habe sehr gelacht. 🖖
ERMAHGERD, a new zefrank video:
“True Facts: The Incredible Tardigrade”
Ignore for a second that my avatar in Zwift is much buffer than I will ever be and bask in the game-ified, vain glory of my violently hot pink Canyon Inflite CF and the matching pink socks. 🚲
Nope, still great.
The Wellermen - Wellarman (Offical TikTok Version)
I’m preparing one of my bikes to be picked up by its new owner and I have to replace the bottom bracket. Once again I’m experiencing how much better and more precisely machined the basic ROTOR PressFit BB is, compared to even the mid-range SRAM and Shimano BBs. 🚲
Yes, I appreciate multi-touch-capable touchscreens but I have to admit that I still look back kindly at the time when well-dampened jog wheels where the shit on PDAs and phones.
🚲 Micro review of the SKS Speedrocker gravel bike clip-on mudguards:
- Inexpensive
- Not particularly pretty
- Easy and quick to put on after initial setup
- Very decent protection, side splash with 38 mm tyres is minimal
- Quiet and stay in place securely even on bumpy roads
It still makes me chuckle to see how the current way of syncing iOS devices with a Mac in the Finder is essentially iSync from way-back-when.
I retweeted this when it showed up in my Twitter feed but it bears repeating. Please @JoeBiden @SenSchumer @SpeakerPelosi don’t fuck this up.
Liebe Leute, diese Petition ist es wert unterschrieben zu werden.
Gesundheitsreform für eine bessere Pflege zum Schutz der Pflegebedürftigen
Es geht darum bessere Pflege zu sichern, indem Pflegekräften bessere Arbeitsbedingungen gesetzlich garantiert werden.
This blog/feed is always just a step away from becoming a repost bot for Colbert, Ruffin, Bee, Fraser, Zaltzman, and Meyers satirical content. I’m so thankful for these performers.
This continues to be one of the best ongoing segments in comedy. Right up there with “Amber Says What”, “Meanwhile”, and @aliterative’s “D’Ancey Lagarde novel ads” on The Last Post.
Seems like a done deal that Fujifilm is going to release the XF70-300mmF4-5.6 R LM WR and XF27mmF2.8 R WR lenses soon. Haven’t bought lenses for my cameras in years but these look genuinely interesting. My credit card is already trembling with fear.
Dear @SpeakerPelosi and @SenSchumer,
German from across the pond here, who has many people he cares about deeply over in the U.S.
Please legislate like there’s no tomorrow and give Mitch and his bunch neither concessions nor one ounce of control. They didn’t afford you any.
Colbert always delivers. Really nice monologue about the inauguration of Joe Biden.
BIKEPACKING reviewed the “Ratio 1×12 Upgrade Kit” and now I want to try it. ❤️ 🚲
It creates a true mechanical mullet drivetrain by converting mechanical SRAM 11-speed road brake/shifters to 12-speed, compatible with SRAM’s 12-speed MTB rear derailleurs and cassettes.
The Washington Post has a really good subscription offer for their digital content out again: USD 59.— for two years. I just took advantage of it.
Habe gestern mitbekommen, das hier um die Ecke Giftköder gefunden wurden. Ich frage ich mich immer, ob diese widerwärtigen Menschen, die so was verteilen, verstehen, mit welchen schmerzhaft schweren Konsequenzen sie rechnen müssen, sollte sie ein Hundebesitzer erwischen. 🐕
If @Apple added external keyboard support for @TextExpander to iPadOS/iOS, it would be the single most impactful boost to my productivity using my 12.9" iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard they can make.
Star Trek Voyager, “Bride of Chaotica”, the casino.
JANEWAY: Coffee, black.
NEELIX: Sorry, Captain. We lost two more replicators this morning.
JANEWAY: Listen to me very carefully because I’m only going to say this once. Coffee, black.
You just have to love Captain Janeway. 🖖
Watching Star Trek Voyager‘s „Bride of Chaotica“ and want to think that they laughed themselves fuzzy filming it. 🖖
From this morning’s walk with the dogs. I haven’t had this much snow at my door step since I was a child. I’m loving this. 📷
Some time in the future when we’re all allowed to travel again and trips by plane aren’t almost surefire ways to catch COVID-19, I’ll head over to Toronto again. When I do, I’ll bring my gravel bike because of stuff like this:
How great is this mash-up? Sorry, rhetorical question, don’t answer. It’s great.
Sweet Dreams + White Stripes Mashup | Pomplamoose ft. Sarah Dugas
Thanks to @ShawnKing at The Loop for this.
The more I use my iPad Pro (12.9") for work the more I appreciate this device and the more I want to see this OS become as capable as macOS. Microsoft really had the right idea with the Surface Pro line of tablets.
Nailing it, as always:
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert: The terrorists who attacked Congress at the president’s direction came prepared to kill
IM-FUCKING-PORTANT announcement! This is not a drill!
The Amber Ruffin Show now has its own YouTube channel!
“WhatsApp ändert Nutzungsbedingungen: Daten werden mit Facebook geteilt”
Dies ist eine gute Gelegenheit Freunde und Familie mal wieder darauf hinzuweisen, dass es mit Threema und Signal gute und sichere Alternativen gibt.
White supremacist, terrorist Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in seditious insurrection and my heart is broken for the people of the United States
It’s really hard to put into words how painful it was to watch the events that unfolded in the U.S. Capitol yesterday. I’m just a spectator from across the pond in Germany and still I’m so worried. Worried for the friends I have over there, worried about this beautiful country, and worried about the state of the world as a whole witnessing these things.
The single most enraging, yet entirely unsurprising thing for me was the stark display of systemic racism, seeing how white thugs were able to stage a coup in the houses of the legislative branch incited by sitting, traitorous president and law enforcement didn’t stop them. Had a group of Black and Brown people attempted something like this, U.S. law enforcement would have massacred them without hesitation, I have no doubt about it.
Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers did good monologues about the insurrection:
If this insurrection doesn’t have palpable legal consequences for Donald Trump and all of his enablers, supporters, Fox News, and the insurgents who stormed and ransacked the Capitol buildings, this is going to happen again, and next time, they will be organised better, more violent, and more people will die before it’s stopped, if it’s stopped.
I’m also acutely aware that the right wing forces in Germany will use this as a rallying cry and a blueprint for their next attempt to take control here and it makes my blood boil. There have already been messages from conservative German politicians making excuses, downplaying the events, and engaging in whataboutism. We’re going to see the repercussions of this over here in a very short while and we’ll have to be vigilant. I have no fucks left to give for any quarter offered to intolerant right wing fucks or believers of conspiracy myths.
Worst thing about this Training Peaks indoor cycling training programme so far? The sensation of putting on a cold heart rate chest strap almost every day.
Oh and FYI: my road bike has a thong now. 🚲
This is the last evening of my vacation. Work starts again tomorrow and I’m excited to get back to it and do great stuff with my colleagues.
Georgians and the U.S. as a whole should be thanking Stacey Abrams and others like her from now until the heat death of the universe. Black women saving America:
"They are two of the most egregious voter suppressors in the country." - Stacey Abrams sets the record straight on Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger pic.twitter.com/0ZxlNEYHnM
— Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) January 5, 2021
Via my friend Lars Olsson.
Really liking this mood. It was right before sunset on a heavily overcast day last week, with temperatures a couple of degrees below zero. 📷
(SOOC JPEG, Fujifilm X-T3, XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR @ 31 mm & f/5.6 & ISO800, ProNegHigh film simulation)
Wishing the U.S. all the luck in the world for today’s run-off elections in Georgia.
I hope Warnock and Ossof win and with the Senate in the hands of the Democratic Party, and Mitch McConnell ditched, you’ll see some actual change.
Despite my reservations when it was introduced, I’ve grown to appreciate the “recommended photo” feature in Apple’s Photos app on iOS. I even have it as a widget on the home screen of my iPad. It’s nice to be reminded of past events with the odd photo every day.
I’m in week 2/8 of a Training Peaks cycling training plan and yeah, I’ll take low cadence/high power training over high cadence spinning any day. 🚲
New head canon:
Grudge from Star Trek Discovery is a descendant of „The Cat from Outer Space“ (1978). 🖖
Yesterday my partner and I watched one of my favourite episodes of Star Trek Voyager. It combines my love for Star Trek with my childhood love for dinosaurs: season 3, episode 23, „Distant Origin“. 🖖
Last week we had enough snow to warrant a trip up one of the mountains for a walk in the white. The dogs loved it.
People always rave about how Paul Rudd doesn’t seem to age. @SarahKSilverman still looks like she did in the Star Trek Voyager two-parter “Future’s End” which aired in 1998. 🖖
Recommended: Marques Brownlee’s very informative AirPods Max review. He really nails who they’re made for. These headphones look like a slam dunk and a tiny part of me wants them but my demands for audio quality are higher than these are designed to deliver and that is fine.
When you’re listening to a good binaural ASMR recording with well isolated earphones and you’re not sure if the background noises are happening in the recording or in your room. 😳🙄
Having Neil Gaiman as a guest on two episodes of The Last Post was great. I love that he apparently genuinely enjoys Alice Fraser’s “D’Ancey LaGuarde” novel promos. See episode 342 Dragon news 🐲. #hagow
(If you don’t yet know The Last Post, well, enjoy binging the backlog.)
I rarely (dare) disagree with Alice Fraser (@aliterative) but this is one such instance. On this week‘s Bugle (@hellobuglers) she said, „… may have been watching a little bit too much Star Trek.“
To which I have to respond: There is no such thing! 🖖
ERHMAGERD! Ahsoka!
A short chronology of events:
- The Mandalorian – Chapter 11: Bo-Katan Kryze1 tells the Din Djarin to seek out Ahsoka on a forest planet. My jaw drops and I squeal with excitement. I rewind that scene, rewatch it, squeal again.
- The Mandalorian – Chapter 13: We meet Ahsoka. Thrawn is mentioned, hinting at a larger quest to be explored by her. I watch that episode five times.2
- Disney announces a metric ton of new projects, among them an Ahsoka series. I almost faint.3
Ahsoka is by far (as in “no other character comes close”) my favourite character in the Star Wars universe. Her development, her character arc in the Clone Wars TV series is second to none, especially if you watch the last season, released on Disney+ earlier in 2020 and read the excellent book by E.K. Johnston called “Star Wars: Ahsoka”.
I still have a hard time containing my excitement and delight at seeing Ahsoka come to life (action) in this episode of The Mandalorian. Rosario Dawson, in my eyes, captured the character perfectly, down to the little mannerisms Ahsoka had in the latter seasons of The Clone Wars. I seriously cannot wait to see her reprise the role in a series centred around this force-wielding Togruta.
I’m writing this post a lot later than I had planned—life, amirite?—and I want to share two podcasts that only increased my enjoyment of the episode and pointed out a few things that I didn’t notice during the first two or three times I watched the episode.
Firstly, the recap of the episode on the Desi Geek Girls podcast with the excellent Swapna Krishna and Preeti Chhibber. Secondly, Dan Moren’s and guest Kelly Guimont’s discussion of the episode on the teevee podcast “A Complicated Profession”.
The most difficult thing about this is going to be the wait. Ah well.
Ich schaue gerade die Bundespressekonferenz. Endlich ein Ansatz eines Lockdowns. Aber es geht mir immer noch nicht weit genug.
Harter Lockdown. Jetzt. Verdammt nochmal. #LockdownJetzt
So, liebe asoziale Querfuzzis, Pandiemieanzweifler, Verschwörungsmystiker, rechte Abschaumler, Neoliberale, FDP-Parteimitglieder, Faschistenkuschler in allen Parteien, reichen euch 600 Tote pro Tag und knapp 30.000 COVID-19-Neuinfektionen? Oder wollt ihr mehr?
Als ich die Meldung heute früh in der Tagesschau-App sah, war ich einfach nur fassungslos.
Klar, von den oben genannten Personenkreisen habe ich derartiges Verhalten erwartet aber ich hatte trotzdem eine kleine, verschwindend geringe Hoffnung, dass dieser “Lockdown Light” 1 und die damit verbundenen Bedingungen und Ankündigungen von Konsequenzen bei Zuwiderhandlung irgendetwas bringen würden. Letztendlich hat sich wieder gezeigt, dass die Experten Recht hatten und es einen Scheiss gebracht hat.
Die Landesregierungen haben, aus meiner Sicht, auf ganzer Linie versagt. Dieses permanente Hin-und-Her und die Weigerung den Empfehlungen der Bundesregierung zu folgen sind einfach nur peinlich. Dann noch dieses nervige, kontraproduktive Penisgewedel der Landesfürsten, um Kanzlerin Merkel auflaufen zu lassen und den Lobbyisten ja keinen Grund zu geben, die Angebote für zukünftige Aufsichtsratsposten in Frage zu stellen.
Es reicht mir. Setzt endlich mal einen Lockdown an. Wir in Deutschland, und die westlichen Staaten insgesamt, müssen endlich von ihrem hohen, durchseuchten Roß runter kommen und sich anschauen, wie andere Länder es gemacht haben. Schaut mal auf Asien und Australien.
Dann noch bitte Mittel zum Schutz der Allgemeinheit unbürokratisch zur Verfügung stellen und Verstöße gegen die Pandemieeindämmungsverordnungen mit sensiblen, an das Einkommen der Person oder Organisation geknüpfte Strafen ahnden und wir könnten es nach sechs Wochen vielleicht schaffen da raus zu kommen.
Ich hatte bisher Glück und bin weder selbst infiziert, noch jemand in meiner näheren Umgebung, und es gab im Familien-, Freundes- und Bekanntenkreis erst sehr wenige Tote. Aber selbst die waren zu viel. Ich habe keine Lust, dass den Personen, die ich liebe etwas zustößt, weil irgendwelche Asozialen sich weigern die Gemeinschaft zu unterstützen.
Ich werde fortan Solidaritätsverweigerern gegenüber keinerlei Toleranz zeigen. Ich habe schlichtweg genug.
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Ist noch Zeit ein weiteres Unwort des Jahres zu nominieren? ↩︎
Hearing @aliterative crack up at jokes (from guest or her own) on The Last Post always makes my day. #hagow
Habe es eben das erste mal organisch genutzt:
„Schatz? Soll ich Dir noch ein Körnerkissen in die Mie-kro-ua-weh legen?“
I just watched one Polish YouTube video. I fully expect the YouTube algorithm to flood my recommendations with Polish content now. 🙄
🚲 FYI:
On my Saturday road ride, I rode over glass shards from broken bottles twice. No chance to bunny hop over them or cycle around them. The Continental Grand Prix 4 Seasons tyres didn’t puncture.
I only just remembered how lucky I was, while 30 km away from home at 1 °C.
I love it when John Oliver uses his show to get up to some The Bugle-level bullshit.
And I still haven't found what (saddle) I'm looking for 🚲
On Saturday, I managed to beat my innerer Schweinehund 1 to go out for a winter cold/bad weather ride. I had wanted to take Swift Wind on a route I’ve ridden a number of times since moving to Freiburg, to finally see how it compared to my gravel bike with road tyres.
It was a good ride for the most part and once again I felt the differences between a true road bike and a road rubber-equipped gravel bike when it comes to, well, riding on the road. The weather was grey, moody, a bit of rain came down, too, and the roads were wet and dirty. Back home Swift Wind looked as dirty as Battle Cat, if you replaced the dirt and mud the latter attracts cycling off road with grime from the street.
This was also the first wet weather outing with the Mavic Kysrium Pro Exalith wheels and I came away impressed with the stopping power and modulation of the wheel set/brake pad combination. Yes, they still scream like a banshee when breaking but that’s going to go away.
The more important take-away from the ride was the realisation that somehow my bikes still don’t fit me perfectly. On all three of my bikes, road, gravel, CX-turned-commuter I start to get numb hands after a certain amount of time and on the two drop bar bikes my feet start to tingle on longer excursions, too.
I’ve been thinking about getting a proper bike fit for a while, even if it means that the bike fitters are going to tell me that my bikes are the wrong size. Still, it irks me because the road bike and the gravel bike were bought based on the fact they have a similar if not identical geometry to my correctly sized CX bike2. I don’t feel stretched out on my bikes, I always feel in full control of the steed no matter the terrain, and generally, I’m comfortable. Ah well.
I called one of the bike shops in the area that offers bike fittings to ask a few questions and to set up an appointment. The person I spoke to told me that what I was likely going to need is a professional bike fit by one of their partners (which I had expected) but before I went that route, they asked which issues I had. After a brief description they advised me to try something else before a bike fit: a wider saddle.
They said that many people use too narrow a saddle or one that isn’t wide enough to support their sit bones properly in the preferred position they ride a particular bike in. Because of that, the nerves leading towards the feet are compressed on the one hand and on the other hand, in an effort to compensate the pressure on the butt, some people will put too much weight on the upper body and hands.
That… sounded eerily close to how I felt I was behaving on my bicycles.3
I use two saddle models: A Fabric Scoop Pro Shallow in the 148 mm width with the carbon shell and rails, and a Specialized Power Arc Pro Elaston in the 143 mm width. My sit bones are 123 mm apart, so 140+ mm should be the proper width, based on the manufacturers' and retailers' recommendations, and in the case of the Fabric, after trying the saddle in the shop for a good amount of time.
Interestingly enough, I get sore hands and numb feet more slowly on the Specialized saddle. With the input I received from the bike fitter in the bike shop, I think this may be because the Elaston cushioning manages to compensate for a potentially too narrow saddle for a certain amount of time while cycling.
This also fits with what I’ve read doing additional research about the Power Arc saddles on the internet. Seemingly, due to the strong curvature of the saddle, width numbers don’t tell the whole story and more than one person found a better fit sizing up.
A 155 mm Specialized Power Arc Pro Elaston is on its way to me and should arrive later this week. I’m very curious to find out if this changes things for me. It would be nice to get the fit dialled without a bike fit and at this point I’m not ruling out anything, neither too narrow a saddle, nor a completely wrong understanding of bike sizing, or even the fact that I have too many pounds on my ribs for the type of bike I’m trying to ride.
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That’s a German figure of speech that there’s no elegant English translation for. Literally it means “one’s inner swine dog” and the closest meaningful translation is “one’s weaker self”. Beating your “innerer Schweinehund” means “to overcome one’s weaker self” but really, it lacks some of the pathos we Germans imbue this phrase with. ↩︎
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I had the CX bike fitted at the manufacturer (Canyon in Koblenz, Germany). They took detailed measurements of me and found that I fell between two sizes. I got to try a number of sizes of the same model and the smaller of the two recommended ones was too short, felt too twitchy. The larger of the two felt perfectly right under my butt. I even tried the next size up to be sure and that one was way too stretched out and unwieldy. ↩︎
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I’ve done my best to make sure the reach of my bikes is correct, the saddle is not too high, my cleats are set up the way they need to be, the saddle tilt is right, and the drop bars and levers are set up properly. I’ve watched numerous videos on the topic, read up about it, etc. I tried everything short of getting a professional bike fit. ↩︎
62 km road ride yesterday and today a 4 km “hike” in snow. My legs aren’t happy with me. It’s properly painful.
Rewatched the latest episode of Star Trek Discovery 🖖 after breakfast this morning and the scene where Adira tells Stamets their pronouns was so great. Essentially a simple, straightforward
Adria: “They/them are my pronouns.”
Stamets: “Perf.”
How it should be. ♥️
I just watched the latest episode of Star Trek Discovery and had tears in my eyes during the scene with Culber and Stamets at the end because these two are just so cute together. 🖖
Kennt jemand eine gute Alternative zu @LushDeutschland @LushLtd? Ich habe bisher deren Haarseifenstücke genutzt. Mir war das feindselige und verachtenswerte Verhalten der Firma gegenüber Trans-Personen nicht bewusst. Kann denen nicht mehr guten Gewissens mein Geld geben.
Fuck!
Someone drove their car through the main shopping street (a pedestrian precinct) in my old home town of Trier killing two and badly injuring at least 15 people.
Can I just remind people about how hilarious Emmy Blotnick is?
(Fair warning: some of the jokes are lewd.)
It is Sunday, 19:54 in the evening and I‘m already in bed, „Star Wars - The Clone Wars - Stories of Light and Dark“ in my hand, some good chocolate and a glass of Bunnahabhain on my night stand next to me.
Finally got around to hanging two pieces of art up on the wall of my office. A Harry Potter-themed drawing by @jakewyattriot and a signed print by @billamend.
That moment when you confidently lift your coffee mug and bring it to your mouth, only to find that it is empty again. ☹️
I blame @skrishna not just because it is easy. I blame her because she’s very much responsible for this.
There so much talk about steel bicycle frames being so comfy and how they reduce vibrations. I’ve recently realised how flexy my aluminium CX frame is compared to my titanium gravel and road frames. Really odd. 🚲
Ich mag Sarah Bosetti: Anne Frank und die “Querdenker”
Woah, this is cool:
“LOW WASTE BIKEPACKING: ENERGY BALLS!”
I’ve been looking for a way to reduce my dependence on pre-packaged energy bars when I ride. 🚴🏻♂️ These things might do the trick and appear to be very easy to prepare. I might even infuse them with coffee syrup.
🙄 I have to install Lightroom Classic again to import some old Aperture libraries into that before I can import them into Lightroom CC. I miss Aperture.
Went for a nice afternoon ride on Swift Wind yesterday. At 15 °C it was likely the last time I got to wear cycling shorts this year. Did one of my quick, local rounds up to St. Märgen and St. Peter. The new wheels performed very well. 🚲 📷
Yesterday I washed a bunch of new merino wool clothes I splurged on during a pre-Black Friday sale last week. The entire basement smells like wet sheep now.
Oder anders ansgedrückt:
Querdenker, Covidioten, und Rechte missbrauchen Kinder als menschliche Schilde.
Beautiful commercial by BH Bikes for their new electric assist carbon road bike. I don’t plan on getting an eBike anytime soon but I very much like that these things get many people cycling (again) who might not otherwise. 🚲
Just watched season 2 episode 3 of The Mandalorian.
ERMAHGERD!
I’m still shocked. Flabbergasted. Excited and happy.
Interesting read: Remote Work Is Killing the Hidden Trillion-Dollar Office Economy
I’m curious to see how permanent the changes to work culture will be, if big cities become more livable again, and what the long term ecological effects of this are going to be.
This is absolutely beautiful and I want it so badly. Also reminded me that I haven’t watched Stargate in a long time and may have to do a rewatch soon-ish.
3D printed Stargate https://t.co/CjEAATCoJe pic.twitter.com/ZaJ7oSmO34
— algoritmic (@algoritmic) November 10, 2020
Ich frage mich ernsthaft, wann die Bundesregierung endlich damit beginnt jede einzelne Entscheidung von Hans-Georg Maaßen, während dessen Zeit als Leiter des Verfassungsschutzes, gründlich zu untersuchen. Dieser Mann ist ein lupenreiner Rechter.
I think I haven’t said this in a while, so…
The team at 1Password is amazing. I genuinely love the people I work with and I look forward to interacting with them every day.
Fun 🚲 ride on Sunday. We bought a new bicycle trailer for the dogs 🐕 and they accepted it more easily than expected. Lots of practice and treats obviously helped.
Congratulations USA! I am so happy for you! „Biden × Harris“ is a go.
Now I‘m going to keep my fingers crossed for two more Senate seats for the Democratic Party from Georgia.
What a beauty! 🚲
Bikepacking.com — READER’S RIG: BEN’S CRUST DREAMER
It’s great that a lot of media outlets stopped airing Trump’s diatribe yesterday and reacted strongly to it. But why only now? Ellen K Pao. (@ekp on Twitter) summarised it well:
I’m so anxious because of the U.S. election. What a fucking mess. Got a little more than 4 hours of sleep. I think I’m going to hop on the bike for a bit to get my head into a different state.
To all my U.S. friends: Good luck!
I’m rooting for you and keeping my fingers crossed for a Biden/Harris presidency and a democratic majority in the Senate and House of Representatives.
Ich habe gelacht. Einfach weil es aus meiner Sicht unverantwortlich ist, dass fast alle Typen von Versammlungen (besonders von Vereinen) in den nächsten vier Wochen eingeschränkt werden, aber Gottesdienste stattfinden dürfen. Völlig irre.
I love this segment on Seth Meyers’s show. Look forward to it every time.
Jokes Seth Can’t Tell: Disney+ Racism Warning, Lesbian Vampire Series
Ganz toller Tweet von Georg Restle, dem Redaktionsleiter von Monitor im ARD:
“Pandemischer Imperativ: Handle stets so, als seist Du Corona-positiv und als gehöre Dein Gegenüber einer Risikogruppe an.”
Nick Anderson nails it again. Holy shit.
Trump’s and McConnell’s destructive corruption of the judicial system, with the installation of Amy Coney Barrett being just the latest and most public act, is going to have the most harmful long term consequences for the U.S.
Enjoying every second of the Amber Ruffin Show. She’s so terribly good. More female late night talkers, please.
“Kamala Harris' Name Isn’t That Hard to Pronounce: Week In Review”
My dog is sitting on the sofa looking at me, being incredibly sulky, and low-key whining. It’s only 30 minutes until dinner time and the food is not yet in the bowl and she really wants it NOW-OOOOOOOOH!
After the cold I had last week, I took on the first properly taxing ride yesterday, and enjoyed suffering through the 930 m of climbing over a distance of 17 km. The reward was a necessary and welcome double-espresso at the top and thrilling 20 km of descending. 🚲
Stephen Colbert:
“Cruelty Was The Plan: Chilling News About The Human Toll Of Trump’s Child Separation Policy”
Worth watching.
Gravel bikes and overly aggressive tyres *OR* I was surprised how much grip semi-slick tyres have when using the right pressure 🚲
There’s an interesting article up on Gravel Cyclist:
“Has Gravel Riding Got You Over-Tired / Over-Tyred? – By Big Head Todd”
In the article the author, Big Head Todd, vents a bit about the trend towards ever more aggressive tyres on gravel bikes these days, whether that be people adding them because they think they need them or because bicycle manufacturers add them as spec.
Reading through it, I nodded my head a lot because, inexperienced as I was/am with tyre choice, I’ve fallen into the same trap not too long ago and it took many rides on all kinds of terrain to take a step back and rethink how much tread I actually need.
My gravel bike sports a pair of WTB Nano 40 right now. These are absolute overkill for a lot of the gravel roads that I encounter. The Specialized Pathfinder Pro with 38 mm on my second wheel set (slick center channel and fairly tame knobs on the sides), are far more appropriate and offer much more versatility. The reason the Nano 40 spend more time on my bike than the Pathfinders, is because in recent months, I’ve been riding on terrain that would typically be considered MTB territory most of the time. And even if I leave out the occasional section of tame single track, I kind of enjoy going up challenging climbs with this bike; loose ground, roots, and sometimes muddy paths, where I struggle to find traction even with the WTB Nano 40 at low pressures and a gearing of 30 in the front and 40 in the back.
The Specialized Pathfinder Pro are an utterly delightful bit of rubber. Very much comparable to the excellent Donnelly X’Plor MSO 40 mm but more durable. They take a bit of getting used to, in that finding the right tyre pressure for the right terrain and rider/system weight isn’t as simple as with other tyres. Once I had a rough idea about that, it was simple to do the first half of a ride on gravel with stupid low pressures, letting the Pathfinder Pro climb really well and spend the second part of the ride blasting down a hill on tarmac, the tyres inflated to a higher pressure.
I’m glad that I have the WTB Nano 40 but at the same time, it would have been nice to know and understand the true capabilities of seemingly tame gravel tyres.
So if you’re looking for a good set of rubber for your do-it-all bike, think hard on where you ride and do some research before defaulting to the monster truck option.
A look at a platform lock-in tactic in organised religion
I stumbled across this on Twitter. Originally this seems to be from the platform Quora but I wasn’t able to find the original posting.
The question asked:
Why do people get angry when I try to share the word of God with them? I only do it because I care about them deeply and don’t want them to end up in hell. I feel like some people avoid me because of this. Is there any way to get through to them?
A person calling themselves “Doug Robertson” responded with this:
The entire process is not what you think it is. It is specifically designed to be uncomfortable for the other person because it isn’t about converting them to your religion. It is about manipulating you so you can’t leave yours.
If this tactic was about converting people it would be considered a horrible failure. It recruits almost no one who isn’t already willing to join. Bake sales are more effective recruiting tools. On the other hand, it is extremely effective at creating a deep tribal feeling among its own members.The rejection they receive is actually more important than the few people they convert. It causes them to feel a level of discomfort around the people they attempt to talk to. These become the “others”. These uncomfortable feelings go away when they come back to their congregation, the “Tribe”. If you take a good look at the process it becomes fairly clear. In most cases, the religious person starts out from their own group, who is encouraging and supportive. They are then sent out into the harsh world where people repeatedly reject them. Mainly because they are trained to be so annoying.
These brave witnesses then return from the cruel world to their congregation where they are treated like returning heroes. They are now safe. They bond as they share their experiences of reaching out to the godless people to bring them the truth. They share the otherness they experience.
Once again they will learn that the only place they are accepted is with the people who think as they do. It isn’t safe to leave the group. The world is your enemy, but we love you.This is a pain reward cycle that is a common brainwashing technique. The participants become more and more reliant on the “Tribe” because they know that “others” reject them.
Mix in some ritualized chanting, possibly a bit of monotonous repetition of instructions, add a dash of fear of judgment by an unseen, but all-powerful entity who loves you if you do as you are told and you get a pretty powerful mix. Sorry, I have absolutely no wish to participate in someones brainwashing ritual.
This answer resonated with me not just in the way it mirrored experiences I had with certain types of people considering themselves religious. Also with the increasing number of people who believe in conspiracy myths, particularly those fuelled by or based in anti-semitic and fascist movements.
Deezer just flushed Lady Marmalade into my music mix. Haven’t listened to that song in a long time. I’m dancing in my chair. Just FYI.
Der Seitan-Aufschnitt, den ich grad geöffnet habe, ist haltbar bis zum 03.11.2020. Genau wie die Überreste der U.S.-amerikanischen Demokratie.
Amber Ruffin is a national treasure. I hope you appreciate her, U.S. folks. Oh and she has $ 20.— more than your president.
PSA
If your Apple Watch had issues with GPS tracking and showing workout route maps after updating to iOS 14.0 and watchOS 7.0, before following the guidance in Apple’s support article, try unpairing and then re-pairing phone and watch. Worked for me.
Es ist wirklich lächerlich, dass der Link zum Impressum einer Organisation oder Firma fast immer erst dann erreichbar ist, wenn das DS-GVO-Cookie-Banner weggeklickt wurde. Darf nicht sein.
Margaret Sullivan of the WaPo perfectly summarising the mainstream media’s culpability in the evils that Trump and his ilk perpetrate:
The defining media story of this era is mainstream journalism’s refusal to deny Trump a giant megaphone whenever he holds out his hand.
Ich finde es immer wieder amüsant, wie fortschritts-, innovations- und technologiefeindlich neoliberale, quasi wirtschaftsfreundliche Populisten doch sind. Immer schön sicherstellen, dass der eigene Klüngel sich nicht am Markt behaupten muss und auf unsere Kosten geschützt wird.
Since Stephen Colbert and his team moved back into the Ed Sullivan Theater, I’m enjoying the monologues even more, because every now and then you can hear some of the crew cracking up at a particularly salty joke.
Well that’s interesting: the Zeiss ZX1 camera is not vapourware after all. The pre-order price is a hefty USD 6,000.— and for that it really needs to deliver. Looking forward to the reviews by Chris and Jordan of DPReview and Becca Farsace at the Verge.
Outdoor activity tracking with the Apple Watch is seriously b0rked. Ever since watchOS 7 was released, no GPS data is being recorded and I’m disappointed that Apple hasn’t yet fixed it with an update.
Obligatory post mentioning last night’s episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. This time on the “Election 2020”. Please, U.S. citizens, have a plan, go vote.
🚲 Saturday gravel ride: planning failures, challenging paths, and exhaustion
So that was an interesting ride on Saturday. Due to poor time management and lots of rain, I didn’t manage to go for a ride during the week. On Saturday there was heavy rain in the morning but the skies opened up towards the afternoon and Battle Cat and I were itching to go for a ride on wet forest roads. 😄
The ride started on familiar steep trails and forest roads, not surprising but still taxing.
After the first two hundred meters of climbing on sometimes tricky terrain—the WTB Nano 40 tyres had their work cut out of them—I stopped on a meadow for a couple of bites of energy bar and to take some obligatory photos of my bike mid-ride. Obligatory.
I rode past a bunch of young, curious cows who followed me to the place where I had stopped. Two of them were quite insistent to get face scritches and I obliged.
What I didn’t expect, though, was that I had to go over their pasture to continue on my planned route and I expected even less that they’d attempt to join me.
After that things went downhill quickly by going uphill too steeply.
Turns Out™ I had planned this next part of the route badly. For some reason the gradient data Komoot (and Open Street Maps) has for that part of the forest road, is so terribly off that a section where I expected to ride up a ~ 15% gradient—steep but not impossible—was actually a rarely used forestry operation road carved up by heavy machinery and rain with a 25%+ gradient.
Not fun. I pushed or carried my bike uphill for over a kilometre. At the top, which was also the highest point of yesterday’s tour, I was exhausted and panting like a furry dog in the midst of summer. Not good.
The following 10 km compensated me for that slog with beautiful view and incredible riding over everything from flowy double track, challenging single track, even more challenging—for a gravel bike—uphill single track over rocks and roots and finally a long and fast descent towards the Schlossberg on fire roads.
It was my first time at the viewpoint next to the tram on the Schlossberg and I enjoyed seeing the city I now live in from yet another perspective.
Standing there, eating the rest of my energy bar, I had to concede that the climbs at the start of the tour combined with the gruelling ascent pushing the bike robbed me of so much energy, that finishing the ride on the planned route (back through the forest) wasn’t possible and so I rode home on the road … a bit annoyed because chunky gravel tyres make riding on tarmac feel like wading through molasses but I was still happy overall.
Speaking of feeling attacked, this image made by nialljudedev:
Ich fühle mich persönlich angegriffen!
Mit 25: Ich bin total fertig weil ich seit 3 Tagen wach bin.
Mit 35: Ich bin total fertig weil ich letzte Nacht nur 7 Stunden Schlaf und heute kein Mittagsschläfchen hatte.
I’m being looked at disapprovingly from the couch by one of my dogs because it’s almost 17:30 and that means food should’ve already been in her bowl in 30 minutes ago.
Van Jones about the only three important things that happened during the Biden/Trump debate:
- Donald Trump refused to condemn white supremacy.
- POTUS refused to condemn white supremacy.
- The Commander in Chief REFUSED to condemn white supremacy on the GLOBAL STAGE.
Oh neat, Microsoft is finally beta testing iPad Smart Keyboard trackpad support for Office on iPadOS. Looking forward to that.
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on the Supreme Court.
The situation is so dire but please, U.S. Americans, you have to fight. Don’t let the traitorous GOP and Trump convince you that they’ve already won. Vote them out and save your nation.
Micro.blog 2.0 has officially launched!
I’ve been using the platform for over a year now and I’m very happy with it: publishing is flexible and easy, managing the site equally so, pricing is more than reasonable, and the Micro.blog community is simply great.
Battle Cat has a new sticker. 🚴🏻♂️ Found an etsy shop that makes durable Black Lives Matter stickers and donates the proceeds to BLM-linked organisations. Bought a bunch of them. Love how it looks.
I really appreciate Chris and Jordan’s reviews. This one of the Fujifilm XF50mmF1.0 R WR is no different: informative, honest, unvarnished, useful, entertaining. Told me all I need to know to determine if the lens is of use to me. 📷
Went for a lunch ride 🚲 into downtown Freiburg to check out the Burley Coho XC single-wheel cargo trailer and pick up two things 😁
Once again a hard-hitting, enraging, but sadly all too true comic from Nick Anderson.
😂 … Simone Buchholz auf Twitter:
Tour de France ohne Corona-Fälle beendet.
jetzt müssen wir nur noch wissen, was genau da in diesem Jahr gespritzt wurde, und dann kommen wir alle gut durch den Winter.
➡️ Die FDP fordert ständig Steuersenkungen, speziell für die eigene, reiche Klientel.
➡️ Der Staat benötigt Steuergelder, um das Sozialsystem, die soziale Marktwirtschaft, und die Demokratie aufrecht zu erhalten.
➡️ Ergo ist die FDP asozial, markt- und demokratiefeindlich.
Ich würde echt gern die Schlagzeilen-Funktion der iOS 14 Widgets nutzen. Dummerweise kann ich die Quellen nicht konfigurieren, was mich ständig der Gefahr aussetzen würde zu kotzen, wenn Schlagzeilen der Bild oder Welt darin auftauchen. Das sind keine Nachrichten.
Saw this on Twitter five minutes ago and I’m still laughing.
Installing iOS 14 on my iPhone 7 Plus. Should be fun. Really looking forward to the widgets on the home screen. 🤞🏻 it’s stable enough for daily use.
Two 🚲 things:
- Really liking the Shimano SPD pedals at this point. Solid performers.
- My legs are so damn empty and I wanted to go for a 30k road ride tomorrow. Ooof.
Went for a gravel ride after dark last night. Mostly downhill but on paths I haven’t ridden before. Challenging and fun. 🚴🏻♂️
Ich war eben einige Stunden in der Freiburger Innenstadt. Sie ist schön und ich will meine neue Heimat kennenlernen aber COVID-19 und Menschen, die die Situation nicht ernst genug nehmen, ließen mich schnell sehr viel Stress verspüren. Jetzt bin ich froh wieder draußen zu sein.
Ich bin hungrig einkaufen gegangen. Ist nie eine gute Idee. Sollte eigentlich nur eine Kleinigkeit werden.
Yesterday’s 40 km 🚲 ride, which was supposed to be relaxed but turned into a bit of a smash fest, has left me completely ravenous yesterday evening and today. I annihilated a 36 cm pizza last night and today I’m incredibly thankful there’s no fast food joint close by.
Ordered 3 books in my local book shop this morning:
Solutions and other Problems – Allie Brosh
Star Wars - The Clone Wars - Stories of Light and Dark
Warped: An Engaging Guide to the Never-Aired 8th Season – Mike McMahan
I fully blame @skrishna for this.
I’m about to hop on a call with a potential client. My dog is sleeping on the couch behind me, snoring like an old drunken man. Going to be a nice test for the noise cancelling microphones in my laptop.
Ah, the fun of applying a new theme to one’s site and then tinkering with the code for weeks to get it to look just right.
YouTube just put a tribute to Chadwick Boseman into front of me.
Still sad about his passing. Fuck cancer.
Nur mal so als Erinnerung:
Die BILD ist ein verabscheuungswürdiges Drecksblatt und jede Person, die für die BILD arbeitet ist verachtenswert.
Having a late breakfast and watching „Looking for par’Mach in All the Wrong Places“ and eating takes forever because I‘m laughing so much. Such a great episode. 🖖
Ein paar Gedanken zur #b2908-Demo
Ich habe gerade Urlaub und versucht meinen Social Media-Konsum auf ein Minimum herunterzufahren. Leider hat das aufgrund der Demo in Berlin nicht geklappt.
Wie erwartet war diese Demo ein Desaster auf ganzer Linie, ein wiederholtes Beispiel des völligen Versagens des Innenministeriums auf Bundes- und auf Berliner Landesebene, und für mich der aktuellste Hinweis auf einen Staatsapparat, der zunehmend von Rechtsradikalen und Rechtsextremen unterwandert wurde.
Die Bilder von Reichsflaggen vor dem Deutschen Bundestag und die versuchte Erstürmung des Bundestagsgebäudes durch Rechte und andere verabscheuungswürdige, demokratiefeindliche Personen haben mich nachhaltig entsetzt.
Diese Aktion war angekündigt. Es war klar, dass es versucht werden würde. Nur durch den beherzten Einsatz dreier Polizisten unter Lebensgefahr wurde die vollständige Erreichung der Ziele der Rechtsextremen vereitelt.
Aus dem oben verlinkten Tagesschau-Artikel:
SPD-Kanzlerkandidat Olaf Scholz schrieb: “Unser Grundgesetz garantiert Meinungsfreiheit und das Demonstrationsrecht. Es ist die Antwort auf das Scheitern der Weimarer Republik und den Schrecken der NS-Zeit. Nazisymbole, Reichsbürger- & Kaiserreichflaggen haben vor dem Deutschen Bundestag rein gar nichts verloren.”
Schöne Worte. Wäre super, wenn da Konsequenzen folgen. Herr Scholz, wieso überdenken Sie nicht mal ihre Aussagen zu den gewaltsamen Niederschlagungen linker Demos in Hamburg vor ein paar Jahren? Ach und CumEx steht auch noch im Raum. Nur mal so am Rande.
Unser Innenminister Horst Seehofer hat – ausgerechnet in der Bild am Sonntag – folgendes gesagt:
“Meinungsvielfalt ist ein Markenzeichen einer gesunden Gesellschaft. Die Versammlungsfreiheit hat aber dort ihre Grenzen, wo staatliche Regeln mit Füßen getreten werden” […] “Das Reichstagsgebäude ist die Wirkungsstätte unseres Parlaments und damit das symbolische Zentrum unserer freiheitlichen Demokratie. Dass Chaoten und Extremisten es für ihre Zwecke missbrauchen, ist unerträglich. Ich danke der Polizei, dass sie uns heute schnell und konsequent davor bewahrt hat. Der Staat muss gegenüber solchen Leuten mit null Toleranz und konsequenter Härte durchgreifen.”
Wieso wundert es mich nicht, dass Seehofer nicht „rechte Chaoten und Rechtsextremisten“ gesagt hat?
Wir brauchen keine leeren Worte, sondern konkrete Maßnahmen zur Bekämpfung von Rechtsextremismus und Rechtsterrorismus. Diese Politiker könnten etwas bewirken, sie haben die Autorität und die Mittel etwas zu tun.
Ich bin mittlerweile einfach nur noch sauer und meine Geduld, speziell für unaufrichtige und gefährliche Relativierungen von Links und Rechts, ist auf einem Tiefpunkt.
Oder anders ausgedrückt: Personen in Positionen der Macht, in Positionen mit politischem Einfluss, mit einem Mandat zum Schutz unserer demokratischen Grundordnung, die sich nicht zum Antifaschismus bekennen, die ihren Einfluss und ihre Fähigkeiten nicht in den Schutz unserer Demokratie investieren, sehe ich fortan als rechten Sympathisant:innen, rechte Kollaborateur:innen, oder einfach Rechtsextreme. Und diese Personen müssen mit allen legitimen Mittel in unserem Rechtsstaat bekämpft werden.
Oder nochmal anders ausgedrückt: Keine Toleranz für Intoleranz!
Quelle: Reddit thread
Spanisches Original: Pictoline
Nun da die #b2908 Demo genehmigt wurde, bin ich mir sicher, dass die @polizeiberlin bei Verstößen gegen den Infektionsschutz und rechtsextremistischen Straftaten (Hitlergruß, § 86a StGB, Holocaustleugnung, usw.) konsequent und mit aller notwendigen Härte vorgehen wird. Richtig?
Immer wieder schön derart gute Nachrichten zu sehen:
Tracking-Schutz in iOS 14: Facebook befürchtet Halbierung von Werbeeinnahmen
Today my partner and I celebrate Bijou’s birthday. We don’t really know when she was born, so we picked the date we took her home with us from the shelter five years ago. She’s likely 12-and-something. I hope she’s going to have a few more happy years with us.
In praise of the local loop
This video popped up in the Radavist feed a few days ago and it really spoke to me.
It was made by the bicycle manufacturer Bombtrack and showcases one person’s local loop, the go-to bike route the person takes when they just want to hop on the bike and ride for a bit to free their head.
I had my own local loop back in Trier, a 22 km route that I knew I could do in just over an hour, that gave me a variety of terrain, a technical climb, a gruelling climb, some very tight and root-y paths, and two fast descents.
Having only moved to the Black Forest (close to Freiburg im Breisgau) a couple of months ago, I don’t yet have that same loop down but I may be close. I found a nice little piece of singletrack last week that perfectly stitches together a flat gravel section with a forest path climb.
I may have to ride this today. 🚲
Recap of my weekend (week 34)
Saturday
- Slept in. Really.
- Had an extended, Hobbit-worthy breakfast outside watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which was frequently interrupted by raucous sparrows and blackbirds in our garden.
- Switched the PressFit bottom bracket in my commuter bike. Another bike maintenance first for me and it went better than expected.
- Cooked a very tasty dish that was enjoyed on the terrace along with a cold beer.
- Combined the weekend grocery shopping with a bicycle ride and I was properly exhausted back home, lugging a heavily laden bike trailer.
Sunday
- Slept in even longer than on Saturday.
- Made a proper English breakfast for my partner and I.
- Booked a hut in the alps for our upcoming vacation.
- Went hiking on the “Menzenschwander Geißenpfad”. A positively mellow 10.something hike inside a valley.
- Ended the weekend watching DS9 in the sitting room with my partner, our two exhausted dogs snoring gently on the couch.
Relaxing weekend.
Grad eben auf Twitter gelesen und gut gelacht:
Wenn der syrische Azubi den Klassenraum mit “Tschüssikowski” verlässt, weißt du, dass das mit der Integration verlässlich geklappt hat.
Apropos the previous post.
The dyneema pouch is from a small Italian manufacturer of bike stuff called Studio Pursuit. Really well made and sturdy. Been carrying it a lot, not just on rides. 🚲
The commuter bike is close to its final form. I’m waiting for a used Rotor 3D30 crankset to arrive, which I’ll equip with a 1× spider. The SRAM NX Eagle crankset doesn’t cut it for me. The aero bars are going to stay on; they’re so useful when cycling downtown on the flat. 🚲
Mahlzeit!
Das ist denke ich eine Schwebfliegenart aber keine Ahnung welche. Sie war sehr groß und die Fühler sind seltsam lang verglichen mit den üblichen Schwebfliegen.
Auch interessant zwei Euro Fighter tief über das eigene Haus fliegen zu sehen. Machen die Tiefflugtraining im Schwarzwald?
Just scrolled through Instagram and saw 3 sponsored posts and 2 ads for the Quad Lock bike/phone mounting system in the space of 50 posts. Bit much. Also completely lost on me because I have a Hammerhead Karoo. Yay advertising, I guess. Curious how much Quad Lock paid for this.
Gotta say, it’s nice not to be bitten by mosquitoes at night and to sleep without having to assume I will be. Might have to make this net over the bed a permanent thing in summer.
This entire “AMERICA: ENDGAME” montage is campy but great. I cannot get over the fact how fitting it is to make Elizabeth Warren the Scarlet Witch because she is, in the end, one of the most powerful Avengers.
First ride to St. Märgen
What a fun morning ride.
I’ve been meaning to take the road up to St. Märgen for a while now but was hesitant because it’s quite a long climb. Having tackled the road to the top of the Schauinsland last week, I was sure I’d be able to do this without too much pain.
It turns out that the climb is quite mellow and manageable, which was a welcome surprise. I was properly exhausted at the top, of course, because 16 km at an average gradient of 5% is not nothing but the views from St. Märgen and the area surrounding it, as well as the descent back down into the valley more than made up for it.
After both my pairs of HT X2 pedals developed a clicking despite regular maintenance, I’m now going to find out what the fuss about Shimano XT SPD pedals is about. Bought a pair of PD-M8120 and they’re already on the gravel bike.
Schön zusammengefasst von Peter Breuer:
Populisten hetzen ihre Unterstützer, die sie im Grunde ihres Herzens wegen ihres fehlenden Vermögens und Status zutiefst verachten, gegen noch schwächere Menschen auf, damit das nicht auffällt.
You know your dogs love you when they poop at the exact same time so you only need one bag to pick everything up.
Becca Farsace is quickly becoming my favourite editor on The Verge and, in my opinion, one of the most trustworthy and enjoyable voices in tech reporting.
Addendum to the bike rebuild post:
Turns Out™ that even with less carbon involved and the Ultegra brakes being a fair bit chunkier than the Campagnolo ones, the bike shed ~ 240 g. Now, that’s not much considering this rider’s weight but it’s not nothing, either.
Road bike rebuild project: Litespeed Tuscany (2004)
Well, I succumbed.
After so many road rides on my commuter/road bike with its 1×12 gearing, I realised that having a proper drop bar road bike would be nice because switching the wheel set on Battle Cat, my gravel bike, becomes annoying quickly with my riding being 60/40 gravel/road, and I really don’t want to put aero bars on my gravel bike.
When I saw a good offer for a used Litespeed road bike, I pounced. It’s a 2004—I think—Litespeed Tuscany and it had a mix of Campagnolo Record/Chorus 2×10 components, Zonda G3 & G4 wheels, a 46/36 carbon FSA crankset, and a 13–26 cassette.
Hopping on the bike for the first time was a strange feeling. Not only had I never ridden a Campagnolo group1 before, the geometry was completely off. And I mean … what?
The previous owner of the bike supposedly is 2 cm shorter than I am and has a 1 cm shorter inseam length. It felt like I was lying on the bike and not sitting on it. My only guess is that the previous owner must have a long torso and long arms. I wasn’t able to do anything about the crazy long reach of the drop bars or the 110 mm stem or the 35 mm setback of the seat post but all of this was going to change anyway.
I was going to completely dismantle the bike and upgrade the components, mostly with things I still had in my workshop and some which I bought used off classifieds:
- Full mechanical Shimano Ultegra R8000 groupset with a 11-speed 11–32 cassette.
- The Easton EA90 crankset with a 46/30 chainring, that I ran on my gravel bike, because I like my legs and the hills here are steep.
- An Easton EA70 seat post and stem. The seat post has no setback and the stem is 70 mm long.
- A Canyon H17 drop bar replaces the very strangely shaped FSA drop bars.
- The Fabric Scoop Pro Shallow saddle that served me on my commuter until then.
- Specialized HD Wrap bar tape.2
I searched for a new wheel set, too, but anything that could have be seen as an improvement over the Campagnolo wheels that were already on the bike would’ve made this project unnecessarily expensive. To my utter delight I found that Campagnolo used to make (and maybe still makes) 11-speed Shimano HG free hubs for these old wheel sets and the switch was just as easy as with the DT Swiss wheels that I’ve come to get used to over the past few years. Considering that this wheel set is 14+ years old, I was rather impressed, and really; it looks hella cool.
The tyres are Continental Four Seasons in 25 mm and barely show signs of wear, so they’re sticking around, too.3
This past weekend, after I had all components and tools I needed, including a Shimano ISIS bottom bracket removal tool that was kindly lent to me by the owner of a local bike shop, and I began the process of disassembling bike, cleaning everything thoroughly, checking for as of then unseen defects, and putting it back together with new parts.
The process involved a few neat little bike maintenance firsts for me: shortening a carbon steerer tube, installing a BSA bottom bracket, and setting up modern symmetric dual pivot road bike rim brakes — and there I was thinking properly aligning disc brake pads was fiddly. I’ve learned quite a bit and I’m happy about it.
The end result looks like this:
I’m still getting used to the horizontal top tube—it kind of betrays the age of the frame—but the first proper ride this morning was gobs of fun. I picked a short but taxing route up a familiar hill with a manageable gradient to see how it climbs and down a proper descent to see how fast it would go.4
During the assembly process, I kept wondering what to call this new bike and it came to me while blasting down the road from St. Peter towards Eschbach: sticking with the „Masters of the Universe“ theme the bike will carry the name „Swift Wind“.
The aero bars are coming on over the next few days and I need different pedals for it but I am very much looking forward to all of the riding I’ll be doing with it.
-
Side note: For a ~ 14 years old group set, shifting is very crisp, akin to the SRAM X01 Eagle group I have on my commuter bike. Each downshift is accompanied by a solid thunk with a very positive lever action. I can understand why these components are still as expensive as they are. ↩︎
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I’ve been using this bar tape on my gravel bike for a long time now and it’s not only very comfortable and grippy, it’s also very forgiving while being applied. For an amateur like me, that’s a blessing. ↩︎
-
They’re so skinny compared to the 38 mm–42 mm rubber I’m used to from my gravel bike. ↩︎
-
It went fast. ↩︎
Recap of my weekend (week 32)
Saturday
- Cycled up one of the higher mountains in this region for the first time (Schauinsland).
- Met up with my partner at the mountain top for a snack before riding back down and immensely enjoying the descent.
- Started working on my latest bike rebuild project.
- Had barbecue with our neighbours.
- Found out that if humidity is low in the evening, the light pollution is mild enough to be able to see the Milky Way from the garden.
Sunday
- Slept in and had an extensive breakfast.
- Spent some time editing photos from the ride the previous day.
- Cooked with family, had ice cream.
- Finished the bike rebuild project late in the evening — YAY!
- Ended the day having freshly made, and still warm plum cake, along with a glass of cold milk, while watching the Perseids.
This was a good weekend.
Happy Monday, everyone.
A lot of „bike maintenance firsts“ happening for me during this rebuild. Just now: shortening a carbon steerer tube.
Komisch, dass “Dinge hinterfragen” und “nicht alles hinnehmen” nie bei den Leuten und Youtube-Videos gilt, die einem zufällig genau das erzählen, was man gerne hören will.
Folks, I‘m disappointed. How come no one ever told how amazing 46/30 chainrings are? Just rode up one of the higher mountains in this area and I‘m thankful to be using a 46/30 + 11–40 combo.
We‘ve reached season 4 in our DS9 rewatch and I’m enjoying the living hell out of “Way of the Warrior”.
Started a new bike project and was delighted to find out that I can equip a ~ 14 years old Campagnolo Zonda G3 rear wheel with a Shimano 11-speed road freehub. I mean, I’m used to easily serviceable wheels from DT Swiss but that feels like a different kind of future-proof design.
This is insane. I’m scared shitless just looking at some of those drops:
Remy Metailler Smashes Squamish Mountain Bike Trails
Well that’s a bit disappointing. I bought a beautiful tool roll to replace the saddle bag on my bikes. Sadly, it appears that I can’t for the life of me pack it in a way that doesn’t have me fear it’ll explode riding over the first bump on a double-track trail.
Saw an article on The Radavist about a new project called Ride Together aiming to make cycling safer for female, BIPOC, LGBTQ+ cyclists and signed up.
Fun Sunday activity (no really):
Upgrading my partner’s commuter bike from a 2×9 to a 1×12 groupset. Has about the same number of actual gears but with a much wider range, is simpler to use, looks cleaner, and saves a good chunk of weight.
🙀
Just received a „your order is on its way“ notification from a small manufacturer of bike bags (Studio Pursuit).
Checked the tracking link and lo and behold, the package is with Poste italiane. So it is possible to send these when the parcel is actually in transit.
I fell down a fun rabbit hole on Monday evening watching Black YouTubers‘ reactions to „Eminem ft Juice WRLD – Godzilla“ back when the album was released.
Now the YouTube recommendations algorithm is a bit confused, I think.
Habe gerade an einer telefonischen Umfrage des “Bundesamt für die Sicherheit der nuklearen Entsorgung” teilgenommen. Eine der ersten Fragen war: “Sind Sie für oder gegen Kernenergie?” Mein Problem ist ich bin gegen Energie aus Kernspaltung wäre aber für Energie aus Kernfusion.
This video needs to be run in every ad break on Fox News from now until the election in November. No U.S. American should be able to ignore the fact that Donald Trump has turned the U.S. government into a crime syndicate.
w00t!
Fujifilm released their webcam software for macOS. Will have to try this later today.
Hach, immer wieder schön, wenn Aktionen von Rechten nach hinten losgehen und über die AfD gelacht werden kann. Dieser parlamentarische Arm des Rechtsterrorismus darf sich gerne selbst abschaffen.
That was one hard ride yesterday. Today my legs are totally empty and it took me three mugs of coffee to feel somewhat alive. Still, happy with myself.
w00t!
A JSON editor recommendation by a colleague and friend panned out and that’s going to allow me to move post from my old Ghost blog to Micro.blog in a sensible pace, correcting broken image links, etc. Looking forward to having my old content here again.
Every time I watch DS9, I keep being impressed by the portrayal of a single-father/son duo (Ben & Jake Sisko). It’s loving, affactionate, sensible, realisitic, and positive. Just beautiful to witness.
Neat review of the Paul Klamper disc brake calipers.
I considered these a while back for my gravel bike rebuild but there weren’t enough comprehensive reviews for me to take the plunge. I trust Russ.
Durch solche Meldungen mag ich Apple jeden Tag ein wenig mehr.
heise online: „iPhone mit begrenzter Ad-ID: Werbebranche befürchtet Erdbeben“
Since getting back in to cycling, I‘ve learned a lot about bike maintenance by watching the instructional videos by Calvin Jones of Park Tool. Today‘s lesson: „How to Clean Hydraulic Disc Brake Pistons“. Braking response is much smoother now.
Bin grad im Kapitel „Highschool“ in Alice Hasters Buch angelangt. Puh, diese Passage:
»Hey Germany«, sagte der Junge neben mir. Das sollte mein neuer Spitzname werden: Germany. Da musste ich erst einmal über den Atlantik fliegen, um als deutsch angesehen zu werden.
The Trump regime is inexcusably and openly tolerating hundreds of thousands of U.S. Americans dying and suffering due to COVID-19. I have a strong feeling that if they are voted out of office, investigations may eventually lead to verdicts of treason against Trump his apparatus.
Was that pride I heard in Andy’s (@hellobuglers) voice when Alice (@aliterative) made that Messy joke on #TheLastPost yesterday? Loved the episode. Such good entertainment. #HAGOW
Nice little 2× drivetrain gear ratio quirk
Warning, this may be a bit wordy and nerdy.
I have been researching drivetrain options again—don‘t judge me—because I found myself wanting a bit more evenly and tightly spaced gears on both my road bike and my gravel bike.
The area I moved to a while back (southern Black Forest, Germany) is an absolute dream for cyclists: I can climb to my heart‘s content either on- or off- road and when I just want to go fast on the flat, a short trip into the wiiide Rhine valley and it‘s go-time – yes, I went there.
Current setup
On Panthor, my road bike, I presently have a 1× (single chainring) setup using a 36-tooth chainring and a 12-speed 9–46 e*thirteen TRS+ 2nd gen cassette. For the 11 gear shifts, I get an average gear ratio change of 13.8%. The gear ratio in the lowest gear is 0.78 and in the highest gear it‘s 4.0.1
On Battle Cat, my gravel bike, it’s a 1× setup with a 32-tooth chainring on the front and a 11-speed 9–39 e*thirteen XCX cassette on the back. That gives me a solid 0.82 gear ratio on the bottom end of the spectrum and 3.55 on the top end, as well as 10 gear changes with an average gear ratio change of 13.6%.
Changing things up
Digging into some good combinations of cassette and chain rings, I had two sets of requirements
- A closer grouping of the gears on the road bike is desirable but with at least one climbing gear with a gear ratio below 1.
- A low climbing gear on the gravel bike is a must given the steep and quite technical terrain I‘m riding more and more often but I also want fairly evenly spaced gears throughout the range, to tackle longer rides across varied terrain more comfortably.
There‘s an incredible amount of choice in the market for realising what I wanted on both bikes but in all cases I found out that a 2× (double chainring) setup was probably the only way to get there.
Most cyclists know or have heard that a 2×11 setup typically offers 14 unique gears. This can vary depending on the choice of chainrings and cassette in the back. I‘ve compared a lot of cassettes and chainring combinations using a nifty little online gear calculation tool by Jürgen Berkemeier; everything from the e*thirteen and Shimano cassettes I have at home to options from SRAM, Sunrace, Garbaruk, KCNC, etc.
Similarly, I looked at various double chainring options, ranging from insane 53/38 to the 46/36 I still have on my Rotor 3D30 crankset to 46/30. Most of those combinations when paired with almost any cassette end up giving me 14 unique gears, a few give me 15 and even fewer only 13. Interestingly, depending on the difference in teeth between the big and small chainrings, I‘ve seen cassette + double-chainrings combinations where the shift from big to small or small to big chainring (and compensating in the rear) results in a 2%–4% gear ratio increase. I‘d consider this barely usable, which means that these combinations really only offer 14 instead of 15 or 13 instead of 14 unique and usable gears.
Now here‘s the funny bit.
46/30 chainrings are the only ones I found that, paired with the right cassette in the back, end up with 15 proper, unique gears and a change from the small to the big front ring (again while compensating 3 gears on the cassette), results in an actually usable jump of 7%–9%.
I checked other variations of 16-tooth difference chainrings but none seemed to work out with such a high gear ratio increase.2
It gets even funnier looking at the cassettes. Only two cassettes I‘ve found, have cog size spacing that results in 15 proper gears:
- Shimano CS-R8000 11–32
- Shimano CS-M8000 11–40
What now?
I‘m going back to 2× on both my bikes. – GASP!
Panthor is going to receive a 46/30 chainring coupled with the 11–32 cassette. This gets me a gear ratio of 0.9375 in the lowest and 4.18 in the highest gear and and average gear ratio change of 10.11%, a reduction of ~ 3.6%. This average value may not sound like too much but looking at the gear ratio changes across the current 11 and soon 14 shifts, it‘s substantially closer gearing that‘ll give me a much more consistent cadence.
Battle Cat will also get a 46/30 chainring connected to a 12–40 cassette.3 The low gear will offer a ratio of 0.75—WOOOOO! Insane climbs here I come!—and the high gear is going to have a value of 3.83, which is plenty. The average gear ratio value will be ~ 11% (down from 13.6%) across 14 gear changes (up from 10).
I’m not sure how long this is going to stick, if I like the setups for riding, and to a lesser degree from a visual perspective – vanity in cycling is a thing, y‘know.
Thankfully I still have a set of Ultegra R8000 brake shifters and an Ultegra R800 front derailleur at home. The remaining parts like the new chainrings for both bikes were fairly easily found. The Rotor 46/30 direct-mount chainrings are already here and the Easton Gravel Rings, the left GRX brake shifter and the second front derailleur should be here by the end of the week.
Looking forward to the tinkering and trying these two new setups.
-
Quick foot note: the reason the road bike has such a very unusual setup for now, is because it‘s also my shopping and commuter bike, that I sometimes pull my dog in a trailer in. Now not only my needs and wants are shifting, I‘ve also become a stronger cyclist over the past few months. It‘s time to experiment a bit. ↩︎
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I honestly haven‘t had the inclination to dive into the math why the product of certain combinations of chainrings, all with 16-tooth jumps, didn’t result in the same usable amount of gears on the cassettes I looked at. ↩︎
-
I‘m using the XT CS-M8000 cassette but replacing the 11-tooth cog with a 12-tooth cog. I simply don‘t need the speed the 11-t cog offers on the gravel bike. ↩︎
MUAHAHA!
Looks like I’ve managed to snag the 46/30 Easton Gravel Rings double chainring from an online shop. They appear sold out pretty much everywhere. Might get them tomorrow.
Ok, I may have (wilfully) underestimated how much harder a switch from a 32- to a 36-tooth (oval) chainring would make climbing the local hills but it was still a really nice gravel ride.
FYI: Shimano gravel cycling rear derailleur chain length sizing
Road derailleurs, including the RD-RX800 clutch derailleur:
Add 2–4 additional rivets from the reference rivet.
GRX/Deore derailleurs:
Add 4–6 additional rivets from the reference rivet.
I really hope they’re going to remaster and release Deep Space Nine in HD. It’s jarring to go from TNG to DS9 and watch it in SD. Especially because it’s the best series of them all.
😂
While taking the dogs out for a walk, I went past a house where someone was practicing a brass instrument. After playing through the scale forwards and backwards a few times, they went straight to the Imperial March and I was barely able to control my desire to clap.
w00t!
The oval Garbaruk chainring I ordered is likely going to arrive tomorrow. Much earlier than expected. Looking forward to it.
Fixing tubeless valve seal issues with DT Swiss CR 1600 Spline wheels
In the process of setting up my second CR 1600 Spline wheel set tubeless, I ran into the issue of the wheels not holding pressure again. The tubeless valves that DT Swiss provide with their wheels, or rather the gasket used, simply doesn’t seal well in those rims (the middle and right gaskets in the picture below).
For this wheel set I bought a set of Muc-Off Tubeless Presta Valves, which also came with three different types of gaskets. Being hopeful, I tried using the gasket that looked similar to the one supplied by DT Swiss and it was a failure, like last time. The tyres/wheels wouldn’t hold air well and my workshop smelled like Muc-Off sealant all day.
The solution was to switch to the biggest gasket supplied with the valves (pictured left). Even with the valve screw tightened down with less force, I got a proper seal immediately and the next morning the tyre pressure gauge showed the same 4.8 Bar I pumped the tyres up to.
Yesterday I took the bike out for a ride and everything worked perfectly with no pressure loss whatsoever.
Side note:
Apart from this issue with getting a good tubeless valve seal, the wheel set(s) have been incredible. Considering the amount of abuse I subject one of them to, it’s surprising that it still runs perfectly true. Really good value for money. Fitting most tyres (tubeless or tubed) is a breeze.
Went for a short and quick bike ride. Came home mildly exhausted and satisfied. Right as I got out of the shower the endorphin kick set in. WHOA!
Ugh. Just had to resort to buying something on Amazon because I can’t get the thing anywhere else. Not happy about it.
This is going to piss off Orange Hitler so much. Delicious.
#BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/OQg6977n5r
— Muriel Bowser (@MurielBowser) June 5, 2020
A pair of WTB Exposure tyres (30 mm, tan wall) has just arrived. Looking forward to trying road tubeless for the first time.
I updated my post collecting Amber Ruffin’s videos about her encounters with the police. Watch them.
Clip of Kimberly Jones on the riots, property damage, and the broken social contract.
She’s right.
Longer source video below. Well worth watching and sharing.
I just had the thought that ASMR is the hoo-man equivalent of Oo-mox.
Eben endlich “Was weiße Menschen nicht über Rassismus hören wollen” von @alicehasters bei einem lokalen Buchladen bestellt.
Ist schon zu lange auf meiner Leseliste und ich brauche mal eine deutsche Perspektive zum Thema, denn ich kenne hauptsächlich die Situation in den USA.
Speaking of my bikes and Pandemic Purchases™:
I’ve ordered an oval chainring to try on Battle Cat, my gravel bike. I finally built up enough curiosity about those things to purchase one. Should be interesting going from a 32-tooth round to a 36-tooth oval.
This combo of a e*thirteen TRS Plus Gen 2 12-speed cassette paired to a SRAM X01 Eagle derailleur is giving me serious headaches. Shifting is perfect but I can’t get rid of a clicking noise in gear 9 under load. I’m sure it’s the indexing but I can’t get the setting right.
Black comedian and writer Amber Ruffin recounts encounters with police
I adore Amber Ruffin’s comedy and I look forward to her appearances on Late Night with Seth Meyers every time.
With the protests following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in the U.S. continuing and the Trump Regime doing everything they can to brutally crush them, Seth Meyers and his team have started bringing on more black voices during the recent shows. Amber Ruffin spoke of two of many encounters she had with police as a black person.
Monday, 01 June 2020
Tuesday, 02 June 2020
Wednesday, 03 June 2020
Thursday, 04 June 2020
I’m still discovering this new region I live in and this view was offered to me on a recent longer bike ride.
That wasn’t half bad of a ride yesterday. The last 10 km weren’t pretty but overall I’m happy and not nearly as exhausted as after the 60k ride last Sunday.
The Specialized Power Arc Elaston is on the gravel bike and my Fabric Scoop Pro is on the road bike again. Did a quick shopping ride with the latter and my butt is thankful I removed the Ergon SR Road.
So @Twitter, Trump has thrown down the gauntlet. How about you show him who’s boss by enforcing your own rules and booting him from the platform? And when the GOP asks for an explanation, send them the same boilerplate response that you give to victims of right wing abuse.
She’s cute and she damn well knows it. That’s her “What are you doing? Can we continue with the hike, please?” look she sometimes gets when I take too long taking pictures.
In mid-2017 I fell back in love with cycling and the Cannondale Slate was the bike I lusted after. Sadly the geometry didn’t fit. I wouldn’t trade my Litespeed T5G for anything but this new 2020 Topstone Carbon Lefty 1 build is 🧑🏻🍳💋 (review by John Watson on The Radavist).
"Donald the Reaper", an incredibly powerful drawing by Mark Dolk
The Dutch artist Mark Dolk posted this drawing on their Instagram page on 10 May 2020. A few days ago, as the COVID-19 death toll in the U.S.A. rose over 100,000 people and Donald Trump went golfing once again, the image went viral.
There is a criminal in the White House. A traitor to the American people, aided and abetted by a corrupt Attorney General, encouraged and protected by a criminally depraved Republican Party who use Trump as a shield to pursue their worst impulses and to enrich themselves and their friends.
This man and his cronies are actively dismantling what remains of the democracy of the United States and they do not care how many U.S. citizens they kill to achieve the goal of turning the republic into an empire.
As the researcher and writer Sarah Kendzior said
This is a transnational crime syndicate masquerading as a government
Trump and the rest of his regime must be voted out and prosecuted. There is nothing they fear more than losing the election in November because if they do, there’s a faint chance they might face consequences for their actions, and they are doing everything in their power to prevent this from happening.
Ok, I’ve had it with this Ergon saddle; it needs to go. I’m going to move my Fabric saddle from the gravel bike to my road bike and will try out the Specialized Power Arc Pro Elaston. Looking forward to trying it and to a more comfortable saddle on the road bike.
Sehr schöner und bissiger Beitrag der heute-show zu den Auswirkungen von COVID-19 auf die Verkehrswende und die Anstrengungen der Industrie die Pandemie als Mittel zur Aufweichung der Klimaziele zu missbrauchen.
Walked past these super relaxed cows on my Sunday hike. The meadow they were on was fenced off on the one side and had a stream on the other side. They looked like they’re vacationing.
Der deutsche Verfassungsschutz sollte einer gründlichen Prüfung unterzogen werden
Das unser deutscher Verfassungsschutz zumindest inkompetent ist und häufig höchst bedenkliche Entscheidungen trifft, war schon bekannt, bevor die Ausmaße der Terrorserie des NSU ans Licht kamen. So viel ist, denke ich, unumstritten.
Mit den Äußerungen des ehemaligen Chefs des BfV, Hans-Georg Maaßen, am 07.09.2019 zu den Hetzjagden gegen ausländisch aussehende Menschen durch Rechtsradikale in Chemnitz, fragte ich mich zum ersten Mal wie weit – nicht ob – der Verfassungsschutz von Rechtsradikalen und Rechtsextremen unterwandert wurde.
Die offensichtliche ideologische Nähe von Maaßen und der NSDAP-Nachfolgepartei AfD machen dies nicht besser. Und überhaupt ist Herr Maaßen der Verfassung und dem Grundgesetz gegenüber eher feindlich eingestellt.
Jetzt bewirft sich der Berliner Verfassungsschutz mal wieder nicht mit Ruhm, indem das Klimaschutzbündnis „Ende Gelände“ als linksextrem eingestuft wird.
Diese und viele weitere Vorfälle lassen mich daran zweifeln, ob der Verfassungsschutz tatsächlich noch den ursprünglichen Auftrag verfolgt, oder mittlerweile nur noch ein weiteres Werkzeug von rechten und neoliberalen Akteuren ist. Und diese Vorstellung gefällt mir überhaupt nicht.
Es ist, meiner Meinung nach, Zeit das Bundesamt und die Ableger in den Ländern einer sehr gründlichen Prüfung zu unterziehen. Alle Personalentscheidungen und Handlungen der letzten paar Jahrzehnte gehören genau unter die Lupe genommen und daraus müssen Konsequenzen gezogen werden.
Trying a Garbaruk chainring to reduce chain drop
Since going 1× on my gravel bike, I’ve had a couple of instances of dropping my chain on quick and bumpy descents. Pelting down a forest road at 50+ km/h, this was quite scary. It was also a bit surprising because the combination of equipment on the bike is supposed eliminate or heavily reduce the chances of dropping the chain:
- Shimano RD-RX800 clutch rear derailleur
- e*thirteen XCX Plus 9–39 11-speed cassette
- Race Face 32-tooth narrow-wide chain ring
The chain dropping only happened in the 9-tooth cog, which led me to think this might be caused by a lack of chain tension combined with the e*thirteen cassette. I got in touch with the e*thirteen support team and received a really great response, pointing out a number of scenarios and ideas for solving this issue: increasing the B screw tension, shortening the chain by a couple of links, or adding a chain guide.
Since I a) didn’t want to mess with the B screw too much so as not to degrade shifting performance, b) I sized the chain properly, and c) a chain guide is also out of the question because it would completely ruin – Ruin! I say! – the clean aesthetics of the bike, I looked for a different solution and I think I found it in a Garbaruk chainring.
Garbaruk builds these chainrings with 40% taller teeth and an overall longer tooth profile, as the two photos below show well, I think:
The overall fit of the chain on the chainring is also much tighter and the effect of this has been very positive.
Since mounting the Garbaruk chainring, I have yet to drop the chain, no matter the situation. I hope it’s going to stay that way and I’m curious how quickly the chainring is going to wear down.
Ein Familienmitglied testet aktuell ein elektrifiziertes Delta-Trike von Hase Bikes. Das sind schon echt schöne Maschinen und wahnsinnig gut durchdacht. Bin fast neidisch.
Finished season five of “She-Ra and the Princess of Power” yesterday.
What an absolutely amazing TV series this has been. Full of great character moments, depictions of complex personalities, stories of betrayal and redemption, loss and love. Highly recommended.
Deezer just put Tina Turner — Goldeneye into my shuffle and it reminded me how much I liked that song and how campy (in retrospect) this Brosnan Bond was.
Radfahrttipp: "Kurze, harte Schotterrunde"
Ich bin ja immer auf der Suche nach netten Strecken und insbesonndere nach solchen, die sich auf einem Schotterrad (englisch: gravel bike) gut fahren lassen. Verglichen mit Trier und Umgebung, ist hier um Freiburg (im Breisgau) das Netz an so gut wie ununterbrochenen Waldwegen natürlich bedeutend größer und ich erfreue mich schon sehr daran.
Also fange ich mal an die ein oder andere Runde, die sich bewährt hat, hier einzustellen. Vielleicht findet jemand etwas, dass gefällt.
Strava
Komoot
There is a The Bugle live stream happening right now! This is not a drill! This is not a drill!
Für jeden Mann sehenswert und es wert die Lehren daraus zu beherzigen.
Männerwelten - Belästigung von Frauen
Bezüglich des vorherigen Beitrags:
Leute wie KenFM sind einfach nur üble Zeitgenossen, die für Geld jeden anlügen und Panik verbreiten.
Wie Dich KenFM anlügt: Gates will einen möglichst sicheren Impfstoff
Wenn ich Artikel wie “Stefan Homburg: Prof. Verschwörungsmystiker” von Bastian Brinkmann lese, frage ich mich welche Beweggründe Menschen wie Homburg haben, derartigen Mist zu propagieren.
I absolutely adore Chris Harris’s (@harrismonkey) videos about cars and the way the editors manage to capture his genuine excitement about the amazing vehicles he gets to plonk his butt down in.
First impressions: e*thirteen XCX Plus 11-speed & TRS Plus Gen 2 12-speed cassettes
The e*thirteen XCX Plus 9–39 11-speed cassette has been on my gravel bike for over a month now and I’ve ridden over 250 km with it so far. It replaced a Shimano XT CS-M8000 11–40 cassette that I’ve ridden for over a year and countless of kilometres. These are my first impressions of the cassette.
- Shifting is crisper but a bit more fiddly to set up. I don’t know if it’s the higher number of shift gates or the tooth profile but it took me a while to get shifting right on the bike stand. The cassette would react more quickly to less than optimal indexing. Once tuned properly, I found that it shifts quicker, even under load, and the shift action feels more positive.
- It’s louder. Not to the point where it annoys me but it took a bit of getting used to. I assume the lightweight construction with the large hollow space amplifies chain noise and shifting sounds.
- The cassette feels solid and it has yet to show any signs of wear.
- Chain wrap on the 9-tooth cog doesn’t seem to be an issue. I had read this in a couple of places and was worried that going with such a small cog for the highest gear could cause chain skipping but I’ve not had a problem. Mind you, I’m using a Ultegra RD-RX800 rear derailleur and a Shimano 105 11-speed chain (didn’t want to put on a fresh Ultegra chain, just yet) and I’ve properly adjusted the B-screw tension. Even going full-bore on a flat section, putting as much power as I can into it, hasn’t caused any problems (more on that further down).
- With the chain on the smallest cog and depending on the chainring used up front (32-tooth and 36-tooth for my bicycles), the chain will be very close to the rear end of the chain stay. Depending on the bike, this may not fit at all. On my Litespeed T5G, I’ve noticed some chain slap going down fast and bumpy descents in the 9-tooth cog, even with a clutch rear derailleur. This is something I’ve never experienced with the 11-tooth cog on the XT cassette and it may be a deal breaker for some.
- Lastly, and this is not something I’d ever see myself write: it’s noticeably lighter than the cassette it replaced. Sure, ~ 100 g might not sound like much to a less experienced cyclist such as myself but the back wheel seems just a bit more nimble, riding across bumpy gravel tracks.
All in all I’m happy with the cassette so far. It’s done exactly what I had hoped it would when converting my bike from a 2× 11 to a 1×11 system. With a 32-tooth chainring up front, the 9–39 spread in the back gives me an ample gear range, an easy 0.82 gear ratio in the lowest gear, a reasonably fast 3.55 gear ratio in the highest gear, and fairly tight and even gear spacing, particularly in the higher gears.
In fact, I’ve been so happy with this piece of kit that I bought an e*thirteen cassette for my city/commuter/road bike that has, up until recently, sported a full SRAM NX Eagle group with a 11–50 cassette and a 32-tooth chainring. I replaced the NX Eagle cassette with the 2nd generation TRS Plus 12-speed 9–46 cassette and the front chainring with a 36-tooth (soon 38-tooth).
Based on my initial experiences with the 9–39 on my gravel bike, what drew me to the 9–46 12-speed was a) the lower weight, b) the greater range of 511% on the e*thirteen compared to 455% on the NX Eagle, while at the same time offering c) a much tighter and, in my eyes, more sensible gear spacing in the higher gears. The first six gears on the TRS Plus cassette are 9, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 where on the NX Eagle the jumps are 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 22. My first road ride with the new cassette was a 45 km trip mostly on the road up a local mountain and then down again and I very quickly appreciated the choices made by e*thirteen.
Finally, chain wrap on the 9-tooth cog is perfectly fine with a SRAM Eagle rear derailleur and a GX Eagle chain. I tried a couple of times to produce any kind of skipping, riding at 80 rpm, on a slight incline, pushing 42 km/h (yes, I was very much winded after) and I experienced no issues whatsoever.
I’m looking forward to many more kilometres with these cassettes and I’ll write a long term review at a later point.
Stephen Colbert’s monologues while at home with their smaller and bigger mishaps are giving me life.
Certain behaviours of my 2016 MacBook Pro baffle me. Earlier today this happened:
The left side Thunderbolt ports stopped accepting power, then my USB mouse stopped working, a few seconds later the HDMI signal cut out. The right side worked and a reboot fixed everything. 🤔 😕
Working from the garden. My dog walks over to her empty water bowl, showing me she’s thirsty. I take the bowl, walk inside, rinse it, fill it with fresh water, and take it outside again. She sniffs it, walks inside to drink from the bowl in the kitchen and comes back out. 🤦🏻♂️
This little, new blackbirb was sunbathing and warming its butt on warm tiles of our terrace a few days back. Smart birb.
These two titanium Wolftooth Morse Cages just replaced the magnetic Fidlock bottles I had on there. When shouldering my bike, I’ve sometimes detached the Fidlock bottles in the most inexpedient moments. Moving the otherwise rock-solid Fidlock system to my road bike.
Bin gespannt, ob unsere Bundesregierung das Richtige tut und Unternehmen, die jetzt nach Subventionen schreien, vorschreibt, dass diese Steuergelder nicht für Boni, Dividenden, oder Aktienrückkäufe verwendet werden dürfen.
“Can’t Hold Us” by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Ray Dalton is one of those songs that always gets me to bob my head wildly.
Na das ist ja mal ein toller Start in die neue Woche. Bin aufgewacht und habe aus irgendeinem mir unerfindlichen Grund ein altes Lied von Xavier N. als Ohrwurm im Kopf. 🙄🤦🏻♂️😭
So so, MS Office für das iPad erhält bald Multi-Window-Support. Schön. Überfällig aber schön. Jetzt wäre es doch mal toll, wenn alle Google-Apps das auch schaffen.
This is so dark.
Monster under the bed — SMBC by Zach Weinersmith
I watched an episode of the latest and last season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars during lunch. As if Ahsoka wasn’t already my favourite character in the entire Star Wars universe. They tell such compelling stories with her and about her.
Had a bad day yesterday. Managed to pick myself up (barely), went for a short, hard ride and felt better after it. Ended the day with pizza, alcohol free beer, and Star Trek TNG next to my partner. Went to bed much happier.
The latter part of season 5 of Star Trek TNG is full of so many brilliant episodes. Love it. About to watch „The Inner Light“.
Seeing Stephen’s wife Eve pop onto the screen during “A Late Show with Stephen Colbert” made me smile. These two … ❤️
The Corona Pandemic is not over, people. Keep the social distancing going and do not congregate. Stay safe!
(Thanks to @ShawnKing for sharing this amazing video.)
Welp. Went to bed at 2300 and woke with a start at 0400 from what must’ve been a really weird dream that I cannot even remember. Didn’t manage to fall back to sleep again. What a great way to start the day. Now where’s my coffee?
Mine is supposed to arrive tomorrow and this review of the Magic Keyboard for the iPad Pro by Dieter Bohn makes me think that it’s going to work as well for me as I hope.
I say this with all the love I can muster:
Dear citizens of the U.S., this is the woman that could’ve been your president and you let her go. Are you nuts?
Also re: the previous post:
If you name a cat “Mowgli” instead of “Meowgli”, please know that I consider this a missed opportunity.
This is Mowgli, the neighbour’s cat. He’s checking if the coast is clear to take a poop in our garden or if our dog Bijou is around.
Seit wann bietet DHL denn Live Tracking bei der Sendungsverfolgung an? Finde ich sehr praktisch und es funktioniert anscheinend fast so gut wie bei DPD.
Bin positiv überrascht, wie unkompliziert die Einrichtung der FRITZ!Box 7590 und diverser Repeater als Mesh-Netzwerk ablief. Bin noch viel positiver überrascht, wie aufgeräumt, klar, und informativ die Benutzeroberfläche im erweiterten Modus ist. Freut mich sehr.
Very enjoyable video by Jack and Joe of BikeRadar about “secrets of the bike industry”. I bet not all of them are obvious to many (new) cyclists. Particularly the Law of Diminishing Returns and the importance of good tyres.
I ordered the Magic Keyboard for my 12.9 in 2018 iPad Pro yesterday. Really hoping that it works well in the lap and I’m so looking forward to the more laptop-like experience of having a trackpad always closeby.
Habe mich eben getraut die Kommentare zu einem englisch untertitelten Ausschnitt der letzten Pressekonferenz der Bundeskanzlerin zur Corona-Pandemie zu lesen und war positiv überrascht: fast ausschließlich positiv.
Absurde Comics wie dieser sind der Grund, wieso ich Ralph Ruthe so mag.
Hot damn! What a machine: Chiru Kegeti Gravel Bike
#bikeporn #WhatsAGravelBikeAnyway
Loving @feedbin more and more, gotta say. Today I remembered the newsletter subscription feature and in lieu of these amazing people/creators posting RSS feeds, this is as good as it gets.
Eben im Garten eine Blaue Holzbiene gesehen. Es freut mich riesig, dass die hier rumschwirren. Werde wohl bald mal ein großes Insektenhotel bauen müssen.
Ganz toller kurzer Thread von Julia Reda zur Problematik von Uploadfiltern am Beispiel eines Videos von Emmanuel Macron.
Uploadfilter sind eine Plage und eignen sich ausschließlich für Missbrauch.
Ein wenig beachtetes Problem der #Uploadfilter: Präsident Macron postet eine Rede auf seinem offiziellen YouTube-Kanal. Viele Fernsehsender senden sie. @canalplus lässt daraufhin das Original auf Macrons Account als Urheberrechtsverletzung sperren: https://t.co/ULVoX7p6MN
— Felix Reda (@Senficon) April 14, 2020
We’re enjoying a peaceful evening in our garden.
My partner: “It’s so beautifully quiet.”
Our dog a few seconds later: “BUUURP!”
Started watching “Unification” tonight. What a perfect pair of episodes. The scene with Sarek brought tears to my eyes once again.
Speaking of Star Trek. Transporters, how do they work and why are they still being used despite so many strange accidents? “Transporter” by Zach Weiner, SMBC
I love Star Trek and the people behind it. They all seem like such amazing humans.
No matter where you are in the galaxy, we're #InThisTogether. pic.twitter.com/gWjS8MpCuj
— Star Trek on Paramount+ (@StarTrekOnPPlus) April 8, 2020
Both my bikes have been set up with e*thirteen cassettes.
11-speed 9–39 + 32-tooth chainring + Shimano GRX on the gravel bike and 12-speed 9–46 + 36-tooth + SRAM NX on the city bike/road bike.
This is going to be an interesting test of these cassettes over the long term.
Oh and to add insult to injury, Adobe still doesn’t provide instructions on how to remove their invasive software from a system. That’s disgusting.
Tried filling a form with Adobe Reader. It refused to let me use the “print to PDF” feature built into macOS. I uninstalled Adobe Reader again. No software should ever interfere with system features.
Home improvement/wood working pet peeve: I hate Phillips and Pozidriv screw heads with a passion. Super unforgiving when you’re not screwing perfectly straight, not easy to get a proper fit even with high-quality bits and screws. In my opinion, nothing beats Torx.
Eben lief seelenruhig ein Storch auf dem Weg vor unserem Gartenzaun entlang. Bitte wie? Kann das jetzt bitte häufiger passieren?
Es war sehr eigenartig heute beim Gassigehen keine Kondensstreifen am Himmel zu sehen. Aber auch schön. Insgesamt war es sehr ruhig.
FYI, the Razer Abyssus Mirror is still my favourite wired mouse. Very reliable, no software drivers needed, sensitivity and polling rate settings as physical buttons on the underside, easy to clean, ambidextrous.
Seit der Ansprache der Kanzlerin gestern ist heute deutlich weniger los auf den Straßen hier oben in Trier. Schön.
Really cool ad for the new iPad Pro but dang that new Magic Keyboard has me excited. Glad to see it’s going to work with my 2018 iPad Pro. It’s an insta-purchase for me.
Holy smokes, the latest Slack update is great. Really liking the new organisation and having all major UI elements on one side. Bravo, Slack team, bravo!
Spring is here. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to a curfew and we all get to enjoy scenes like this. I guess having to take my dog out for walks might be even more of a blessing soon.
The feature in my iPhone 7 Plus that I like most these days?
Waterproofing. I wash it at least once per day with a tiny bit of dishwashing detergent and some luke warm water.
Not gonna lie, this week’s episode of The Bugle was one of the funniest in recent memory. Thank you Tiff, Alice, and Andy!
Watching ST:TNG “Galaxy’s Child”. Geordi’s storyline is one of the most cringeworthy things ever in Star Trek. The not so subtle crush he has on Brahms, the invasion of privacy, the horrible advances. Kudos to LeVar Burton for acting this out and Susan Gibney for enduring it.
This week was hard on all of us. So here’s a picture of Bijou napping peacefully. Maybe it helps a bit.
I cannot even begin to express how much joy Star Trek – Picard fills me with. This perfect mix of a great story, amazing acting, cameos, and references, is almost too much to handle emotionally.
Interessant, ich beginne an den Liedern von Peter Fox Gefallen zu finden. Hätte ich vor einigen Jahren nicht gedacht.
In reference to my last post, my current poison from Mondo del Caffè:
“F.U.R.O.R.E.” & “Indien Yellikodige Estate AA”
Ever since this comic was published for the first time, I briefly think about it when I make a fresh pot. (From Zach Weiner’s ever brilliant SMBC Comics.)
The switch to 1× is happening. New crankset and an e*thirteen XCX Plus 3-39 cassette have been ordered. Taking a bit of a gamble on the cassette since I haven’t found even one serious review of it online. Super curious how it’ll behave with a Shimano RD-RX800 derailleur.
Ok, I didn’t think this would happen but I might go hydraulic/mechanical 1× on the gravel bike after all. Updates soon-ish.
This woman is delightful, smart, and fierce. I believe the U.S. would heal and prosper with her as POTUS.
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert — Hometown Hospitality With Senator Elizabeth Warren
Apple doesn't care about audio quality my butt, Neil Young
By internet time this story is ages old, I know, but I was reminded again that Apple cares about audio quality and why Neil Young is so.very.wrong. 😉
He made a few waves in the tech sphere in late January by stating something to the effect of the Apple’s MacBook Pro having a shit DAC (Digital Analogue Converter) and Apple generally caring more about consumerism than creating high quality audio equipment for professionals.
Jim Dalrymple thoroughly debunked any of the claims made by Young on The Loop weeks ago but I wanted to offer a different example:
The Apple Lightning/USB-C to 3.5 mm Headphone Jack Adapter
Many people make fun of these little dongles and I get it. Apple removed the headphone jack from its iPhone and iPads and replaced it with an easy-to-lose USD 9.— dongle and they called it courage. My feelings about the dongle went from a solid meh (#donglelyfe) to loving these little things, seriously loving them. The reason is simple: they have amazing sound quality.
In more technical terms (source 1, source 2):
- The output source impedance measures > 1Ω.
- Frequency response is close to perfectly flat.
- Harmonic distortion is almost nonexistent across various resistances (Ω).
- Dynamic range is on par with previous iPhone headphone jacks, which had great audio quality
In less technical terms it means that these little dongles can drive extremely sensitive earphones with no to absolutely minimal changes to the frequency response (their sound signature) on the one hand and can also power full-size headphones on the other hand. To get this kind of flexibility and sound quality, you’d typically have to buy and lug around a dedicated portable DAC.
My earphones of choice are the Campfire Audio Andromeda, great sounding earphones that are very hard to drive properly. Sources with an output resistance of larger than 1Ω will quickly and negatively impact the sound signature, starting with reducing the bass response dramatically.
Using Apple’s dongles, they sound brilliant, same as they do on my MacBook Pro. I even use the USB-C dongle to listen to music on the Microsoft Surface Pro 2 that I use for work a lot. Its 3.5 mm audio jack is … not good, to be polite. With a USB-A to USB-C adapter and the USB-C audio dongle (again #donglelyfe), I get perfect audio quality listening to losslessly compressed music.
So no, Mr. Young, Apple does care about audio quality even on a consumer level. And what I use for proof are these tiny, easy-to-lose, beautifully sounding, flexible dongles.
I continue to be shocked about the incredible gap in competence and clarity of communication between Elizabeth Warren and the other Democratic Party candidates in the upcoming U.S. presidential election as well as the U.S. media’s seemingly intentional neglect of her.
I would kill for a Psion 5mx style keyboard case for my iPhone
No no no, hear me out…
It’s crazy how many things I can get done on this little super computer that is my smartphone but sometimes when writing longer texts, particularly email responses, or blog post, or telling someone on the internet how they’re so wrong about something (kidding), having a physical keyboard is a blessing.
So when this video popped up in my youtube recommendations, I thought, yeah no, not something like this because that’s stupid and unusable unless you have very thin fingers.
I’ve found this little old ThinkOutside foldable bluetooth keyboard for Pocket PCs over a year ago for € 30.— and take it with me as a redundancy if my laptop or iPad doesn’t work on a trip. They keys assignments are obviously made for Pocket PCs/Windows CE and the keys are not big but it’s still a huge productivity boost if you really need to write a lot.
The Psion 5mx was maybe my favourite PDAs back in the day. The keyboard was big enough for some semblance of multi-finger typing and it was a pleasure to type on. If someone where to make a keyboard case for smartphones with a versatile insert system for different smartphones (read: future proofing) and a wired connection (think: adapters for USB-C, Lightning, Micro-USB), I’d be all …
I could live with a bluetooth connection too and in that case, add a big battery into the bottom to give it some heft and long battery life.
Alternatively, just make the Palm Foldable Keyboard again (at some point Targus had the rights to it), lest I might seriously consider making an adapter for it.
Mole hill I’m willing to die on:
Apple’s Butterfly Keyboards provide the most comfortable typing experience with the highest degree of precision. They’re fragile and require care but they’re amazing.
Symphoniekonzert des Collegium Musicum der Universität Trier. Immer wieder ein Genuß.
(Mussorgsky, Saint-Saëns, Brahms, Bonus: Paganini)
Fujifilm just announced my next camera, the X100V (ARGH!)
Yesterday Fujifilm announced a few new things at their “X Summit” in London. The most consequential one for me was the announcement of the X100V. It’s the fifth generation of the X100 series and it’s going to be my next camera.
I’ve been in love with the concept of the X100 series since shortly after I started shooting with Fujifilm APS-C cameras but it always had too many crucial drawbacks for me to consider actually buying one.
The lens
The first lens I bought for my X-E1 way back when, was the XF23mmF1.4 R. I purchased it because after inspecting the photos I had taken with the XF18-55mmF2.8-4 R LM kit lens, I saw that most of my shots were in the 22–24 mm range and I wanted something with a wider aperture to play around with. The 23/1.4 is still the lens I shoot with the most. I absolutely love it.
The lens in the X100 series, while decent, simply didn’t have the same versatility. Corner sharpness wasn’t very good at f/2 and shooting at close focus distances wide open resulted in very soft pictures. Coming from the XF23mmF1.4 R, that’s simply not something I would be able to accept.
(As a side note, the same drawbacks of the X100 lens also apply to the XF23mmF2 R WR lens, albeit not in the severity as found in the X100 series lenses up until now. It’s the reason why I sold the lens again after having used it for a few months.)
Weather sealing
I can’t begin to say how much I appreciate this on my Fujifilm cameras. I have it on the X-Pro2, on the X-T3, and I had it on the X-T1. I take a camera with me almost everywhere I go in any weather. Be it for a trip downtown or going hiking with my dogs. The cameras and weather sealed lenses have handled everything I’ve thrown at them so far and I had hoped Fujifilm would’ve added this to the X100F already, but no.
Now, the new X100V is properly weather sealed once you put a protective filter on the lens and that gives you an extremely compact package that you can take anywhere.
Flippy screen
Maybe you like it maybe you don’t, I like having it and dislike not having it on the X-Pro2. To get this in a camera as small as the X100V is just a nice bonus that only increases the camera’s usefulness.
After the announcement, I read the excellent preview written by Jonas Rask and immediately knew that it would be very hard to pass up on the X100V.
Then the first review by Chris and Jordan of DPReview TV was published and that completely sealed the deal. It’s worth a watch.
An observation regarding Fujifilm’s product policy
Chris Nichols and Jordan Drake mentioned something interesting in the video. Fujifilm has put almost all features found in the very recently released X-Pro3 into the X100V. More than you’d typically expect for what is essentially a compact large-sensor camera. Even the video features are solid for the most part.
This really made me happy because it shows that Fujifilm is essentially following Apple’s (and particularly Steve Jobs’s playbook) for positioning and releasing products:
Instead of artificially separating their product lines to prevent cannibalisation, by limiting the feature sets compared to the flagship products, they let their products cannibalise themselves instead of letting products by other manufacturers do so.
This creates true choice for customers and—to me—is a sign of respect for the customers by the company.
Well dammit. Looks like I’ll be exploring a change in groupset and braking system for my gravel bike after all. This review of the Yokozuna Ultimo mechanical/hydraulic brakes makes them seem like a good option.
So that’s neat: it’s possible to update my camera’s firmware through the companion app on my smartphone. No more juggling with ZIP files and SD cards.
I find it so infuriating that even with iPadOS, the iPad Pro is still so much less capable in places than a 6 years old Surface Pro 2. Yes, this is not a simple situation, has a lot to do with my computing needs, and also not squarely Apple’s fault but it’s still frustrating.
I’ve started watching Vikings a number of weeks ago and I’m now in the second half of season 5. It’s striking how much more sensible, smart, and brave women are portrayed in the series. Torvi, in particular has grown on me; her character arc is great.
Today my Subaru Forester had the OEM stereo replaced with a Kenwood unit with Apple CarPlay. First impressions: Audio quality and UI+UX are just a tad but noticably better, call quality significantly so. This also shows that the speakers Subaru put in are already very good.
DPReview TV compares the Fujfilm XF35mmF2 R WR and XC35mmF2
Fujifilm continues to give me reasons to like them.
I started the video expecting to see Chris Nichols report on significant differences in optical performance between the € 199,— XC35mmF2 and the € 399,— XF35mmF2 just because capitalism. Sometimes it’s nice to be wrong and particularly in this case.
Fujifilm is taking the guts of this lens and making it available in an even more affordable package. That is such a great move because it gives a customer the option to decide if they want to spend money on weather sealing and a full metal build without having to compromise on optical quality or autofocus speed.
I have the XF35mmF2 R WR. After failing to take to it in the beginning, I warmed to it when I realised how fast this lens was and how nicely it renders high contrast scenes. It’s become my go-to lens for taking pictures when out for walks or hiking with the dog, because I can rely on it focusing quickly on moving subjects and capturing what I see. Then there’s the focal length that, while a bit tighter than I typically like, lends itself well for the types of outdoor portraits that I like to shoot. It really is Fujifilm’s Nifty Fifty and such good value for money. I’ve shot some of my favourite photos of my furry friends and some great portraits of friends and family with it.
The art of David Lanham
I absolutely love David Lanham’s art; he has such a distinctive and captivating style. I’ve gotten to know his work through wallpapers and icons made for macOS for The Iconfactory years ago (hey, remember CandyBar?) and I’ve been following him ever since.
No matter if you like cute or strange animals, otherworldly sceneries, or sometimes downright grotesque imagery, I’m sure you’ll find something you like.
These are two of his recent sketches that I couldn’t take my eyes off of.
Lanham also recently published another one of his wallpaper packs that contain lots of amazing paintings and exclusive art that you won’t find anywhere else, all in wallpaper sizes. It’s a steal for the price he’s asking.
This continues to be one of my favourite electronic tracks:
Daft Punk — Derezzed
Literally every time I walk in on the dogs having snuck into the bedroom to sleep on my bed, seeing them napping, it feels like my heart just wants to burst with joy.
I’m not entirely sure how this happened because no one put the little stuffed toy pig on Mika’s back but I’m glad it did happen.
I was just reminded again that I cannot stomach Michael Bay movies. Tried watching 6 Underground and had to stop. Liked the actors but was taken out of the story every couple of cuts. Not even minutes but cuts. Now I’m watching Iliza Shlesinger’s “Unveiled” as a palette cleanser.
I just remembered how much I liked the bumper style cases for the iPhone 4 and 4S and now I’m sad that I can’t find anything like it for my iPhone 7 Plus.
The first ride of 2020
Two weeks. Two weeks I couldn’t find a day with weather good enough to take Battle Cat out for a ride. Too much rain to ride in the woods, too windy to ride anywhere in the open without having to fight massive sidewinds and headwinds.
Yesterday was the first sunny day of this new year over here and I pounced on the chance to get even a short, mid-day ride in.
It took me longer than expected to get into the groove on this ride and for some reason my heart rate was higher than usual. So instead of overdoing it, I kept it short with a few good climbs.
I came home grinning, happy, and dirty; the way it should be.
Die deutsche Autoindustrie hat es verdient zu sterben
Diese Meldung sah ich heute in meinem Twitter-Stream:
Umstellung auf Elektromobilität: VDA verlangt Milliardenhilfen für Autohersteller und Zulieferer.
Ich empfinde das als Frechheit und es macht mich traurig. Ich bin Opelanerkind. Teile meiner Familie arbeiten oder arbeiteten in der Automobilindustrie. Trotzdem sage ich, die deutsche Autoindustrie verdient es zu sterben, statt Milliardenhilfen zu erhalten.
Diese Industrie entwickelt seit so vielen Jahren völlig am Markt, an den Realitäten des Klimawandels und den Veränderungen bei Transport und Mobilität vorbei, betrügt, drückt sich vor den Konsequenzen des eigenen kriminellen Handelns, lässt sich an allen Ecken und Enden vom Staat subventionieren und übertreibt die eigene Wichtigkeit für den langfristigen wirtschaftlichen Wohlstand dieses Landes.
Und jetzt traut sie es sich nach weiterer Unterstützung zu fragen, obwohl die Fehlentscheidungen und die Jahrzehnte an Missmanagement der Altherrenriege dazu führte, dass die Kacke nun am dampfen ist und dieser gewaltige Haufen Scheiße sich nicht mehr hinter einem Berg an SUVs verstecken lässt.
Es reicht.
Diese Firmen, VW, Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Porsche, undwiesiealleheißen, sollen entweder radikale Änderungen durchführen und ernsthafte, realistische und innovative Produkte anbieten, oder sie verdienen es durch andere Firmen ersetzt zu werden und zu Grunde zu gehen.
Ich habe keine Lust, dass meine Steuergelder dafür verschwendet werden Firmen am Leben zu erhalten, deren einziges Ziel es ist Shareholder Value zu generieren und den eigenen Top-Managern Millionengehälter zu zahlen.
Diese Firmen sind für mich als Betriebswirtschaftler der Inbegriff von Versagen: der Ruf nach Subventionen und offenen wie indirekten Drohungen, das Land würde wirtschaftlichen Schaden nehmen, zeugt nicht nur von fehlendem Geschäftssinn und Ideenlosigkeit, sondern auch von purer Feigheit und dem Eingeständnis, dass sie zur Teilnahme an einem tatsächlichen Wettbewerb im Kapitalismus weder fähig noch willens sind.
Ladies and gentlemen, the brilliant Amber Ruffin:
Amber Says What: The Cats Movie, Sharon Stone on Bumble
Ich stand eben an einer Ampel in der Paulinstraße neben einem Transportfahrzeug der Konditorei Raab und gebe ehrlich zu, dass ich mit dem Gedanken gespielt habe einen Überfall zu begehen. 🤤
Sometimes a little effort can make a good thing even better. Today’s example:
Warming the milk before putting it in the coffee.
XKCD continues to deliver. This is such a dilemma for me every time.
Today went nothing like planned. My partner wanted to go for a 12 km hike with our dogs and I would’ve gotten some gravel biking in. Instead we had to take Bijou (12 years) to the vet for what appears to be an episode of canine idiopathic vestibular disease. Poor pup.
Podcast recommendation
This is a daily satirical podcast hosted by Alice Fraser (@aliterative) featuring changing guests. It’s a spin-off from The Bugle, my favourite podcast of all time.
I love me a good pun. I laughed more than I probably should’ve about this comic on Dork Tower.
Two interesting concepts from DELL at CES 2020
CES 2020 is in full swing and two things Dell announced—or rather teased—have me intrigued:
The Concept Duet with its two 13.4 inch full HD touch displays and a traditional keyboard that you can put on one of the sides when you don’t want to type on glass absolutely looks like something is would use. I think it’s a great idea to have two screens that allow for adaptive interaction with content and controls and the option to read on it like a big book when I want to. This entire class of devices that Microsoft has been attempting to generate hype for since their last developer conference could become a really interesting computing experience.
Alienware’s Concept UFO is a gaming PC shrunk down and put into a device that looks and works like a Nintendo Switch. This is certainly a more ambitious project and less likely to ever become a viable product compared to the dual screen laptop Concept Duet. After reading and watching the coverage of this early stage concept, I can’t help but hope that it won’t stay just a concept but become a real thing. I’ve been playing Star Wars – Jedi: Fallen Order on a loaned PS4 and the thought of having this type of game on a handheld console that I can also attach to my TV if I want to is more than a little exciting.
I’m trying very hard not having to get custom eartips made for my Campfire Audio earphones, so I’m trying the third type of silicone eartips now, the Final E Type in medium and small. So far they’re promising but ask me again after a day of listening.
“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” is going to be the first movie I watch in the cinema this year. Looking forward to it.
The last ride of 2019
With the weather as good as it was, I decided to get in one last ride this year. Nothing fancy just 40+ km on tarmac.
It was a good ride and I kept grinning riding along a road between the villages of Franzenheim and Kernscheid — at least on the inside because on the outside my expression was a bit pained from going uphill. I discovered this piece of asphalt a few weeks after my trip to Scotland in 2018 and it reminded me so much of the singletrack roads over there (the only thing missing are the passing places).
I was really lucky because while temperatures for most of the ride were below 0°C, it was dry and I only encountered a few spots of frozen ground.
And I have to say: I might not enjoy road cycling a lot but one distinct advantage to gravel cycling is not having to clean my bike after the ride.
Daumen hoch! Es ist nicht mal zehn und es wird schon geböllert. Die kleinere meiner Hündinnen bekommt jetzt schon Panik. Habe ich schonmal gesagt, dass ich Menschen nicht mag?
Finished two TV series in this neither-here-nor-there time between the years: Lost in Space, season two and the first season of The Witcher. Both of them very satisfying stories.
Impressions from a morning walk in the fog
We met up with a friend and her dog on a hilltop fairly close to our place for a morning walk. The weather promised some nice photo opportunities, so I took my X-T3 and the 35/2 lens with me. Not only was it a nice walk with great company, the pictures I got out of it didn’t disappoint, either.
I couldn’t decide between using the Astia, ProNeg High, and Classic Chrome film simulations in a lot of places, so the pictures above are a mix of them.
Only just got around to reading this obituary for René Auberjonois by Nana Visitor and it made me sad all over again. I really liked this man’s acting and Odo is one of the best characters in Star Trek.
Mövenpick, Langnese, Landliebe und der ganze Rest sollten sich für die Eismogelpackungen echt schämen (gleiche Packungsgröße, halber Inhalt + Luft, gleicher Preis wie zuvor). Dumm nur, dass richtig gutes Eis schwer zu bekommen ist.
Liebe Bundeskanzlerin Frau Angela Merkel,
ich denke es wird Zeit, dass Sie Herrn Andreas Scheuer Ihr vollstes Vertrauen aussprechen, damit die Mautaffäre baldmöglichst aufgeklärt werden kann.
Keeping my fingers crossed that the weather tomorrow is going to be as good as the weather report suggests. I’m aching to go for a proper gravel ride again. Already have a route picked out.
My first longer road ride in a while and I got caught in a heavy rain shower almost immediately. FML. I need to invest in some sort of easy to remove fenders for this bike. I’m happy that I finished the ride not feeling completely exhausted but the coffee stop was necessary.
Re: last post
The Campfire Audio Comet cost me € 200.— whereas the UM Pro 30 cost twice as much.
Yes, we’re talking about expensive earphones but in terms of bang-for-buck, Campfire products are right up there and the build quality is really something else.
My new Campfire Audio Comet earphones just arrived and I’m stunned. These little buggers have only 1 balanced armature driver yet they play on a much higher level than my old 4-driver Westone UM3X. What kind of magic is this?
I’m so very tempted to do the Festive 500 this year. Let’s hope the weather doesn’t get too cold.
PSA: Lightroom for iPad updated with long-awaited SD card support
Adobe updated Lightroom for iPad yesterday and added a few very welcome features, chief among them direct photo import from SD cards and other storage devices. Many people, myself included, have been waiting for this since Apple announced at WWDC that it was opening up external storage devices natively to third party applications in iOS and iPadOS.
The other big feature that I really appreciate having in Lightroom on my iPad now, is the ability to export data to external devices in different formats, including the RAW files and with predefined settings.
If you’re using Lightroom on your iPad, this application has just become a lot more useful and powerful.
Not a day goes by that I’m not grateful to work with the people at 1Password. It’s a great team comprised of wonderful, kind, intelligent, and funny people.
Three trailers that have me giddy with anticipation
Over the past week three upcoming movies had their trailers released that I just cannot wait to see in the cinema.
James Bond — No Time To Die
This is, once again, supposed to be the last Bond movie starring Daniel Craig in the leading role as James Bond. I may have grown up with Pierce Brosnan’s Bond but I still consider Craig to be “my Bond”. His portrayal of the character and the movies as a whole have brought a new grittyness, realism, and emotional component to the franchise that I find very enjoyable.
Still, I think the Bond movies need a bit of a shake-up and for that reason, I’m very excited to see a female 00 agent in the next film. I really hope we’ll be treated to the mantle of James Bond being handed to someone who’s not a white male actor.
Black Widow
It’s sad that this wasn’t released before the character of Black Widow has been sacrificed in “Avengers: Endgame” but I’m glad that it’s coming nonetheless. My secret hope is that they’re not going to hold back on the character and explore some of Romanoff’s past misdeeds and her quest to clear the red in her ledger.
Wonder Woman 1984
This came out yesterday and I was squealing like a little girl. I’m not entirely sure about the fact they’re bringing back her love interest and I’m also not sure if I need another look back, I think I’d rather see Diana Prince/Wonder Woman kick ass in the present after the events of “Justice League”.
It’s rainy, it’s windy, and I can’t shake this tiredness today. Time to hop on the bike and go for a ride, then.
I just realised once again that I would really like to have one of those nice RadTech RadSleevz but for my iPhone 7 Plus. I loved them on my old iPads.
Ein sehr lesenswerter Thread, in dem meine Frustration mit den Reaktionen zum neuen SPD-Vorsitzendenduo gut zusammenfasst wird.
Ihr alten Herren der SPD habt Deutschland maßlosen Schaden zugefügt. Haltet den Rand!
On the one hand it’s nice to have reached my daily calorie goal with one taxing activity today, on the other hand it means I should really increase my daily calorie goal to something more challenging, on the other hand that’s great because I’ve been at this level for too long.
Odd, today’s one of those days where music has an even greater effect on me than usual. Listening to Andra Day — Rise Up right now is sending shivers down my spine.
Angekündigt ≠ Versandt
Es ist irgendwie jedes mal das Gleiche: ich möchte etwas per Internet bestellen, finde einen Onlineshop mit angeblich zügiger Lieferzeit, kaufe den Artikel und dann heißt es warten.
Meistens kommt im Laufe von 24 Stunden eine E-Mail die mir mitteilt, dass die Ware versandt wurde. In Vorfreude öffne ich die E-Mail, klicke auf den Sendungsverfolgungslink und … … … bin enttäuscht.
Ich kann mich nicht erinnern, wann ich in den letzten Jahren etwas im Internet bestellt habe und mit dem Eintreffen der “Versandbestätigung” war die Ware auch tatsächlich in den Händen des Versanddienstleisters. Fast immer ist der Status, den ich sehe ein “Die Sendung wurde dem Versanddienstleister elektronisch angekündigt."
Es gibt genug Onlineshops, bei denen weiß ich, dass wenn ein Artikel lagernd verfügbar ist und ich vor 14:00 Uhr bestelle, die Sendung tatsächlich am gleichen Tag auf den Weg kommt. Es gibt aber auch genug andere Läden im Netz, bei denen zwischen der Ankündigung der Sendung bei DHL, Hermes, DPD, UPS, etc. und dem tatsächlichen Paketausgang durchaus einige Tage vergehen können, selbst wenn das Produkt auf Lager ist.
Ich frage mich in solchen Momenten dann immer ob die Onlineshops wirklich denken, dass es in ihrem Interesse ist, wenn ein Kunden sich kurze Zeit nach der Bestellung verarscht fühlt. Es kann nicht so schwer sein, den automaticshen Versand einer E-Mail-Versandbestätigung an den Status “Die Sendung ist im Verteilzentrum eingetroffen und wird für den Weitertransport in die Zielregion vorbereitet." eines Versandunternehmens zu koppeln.
Für mich als Kunden würde das weniger höhnisch, deutlich aufrichtiger wirken, und die E-Mail hätte einen tatsächlichen Informationswert.
Achievement unlocked: a second wheel set for my bike
After my failed experiment of trying to mount 650b wheels on Battle Cat, my gravel bike, I couldn’t get the idea of having two wheel sets out of my head; one for off road riding and one for road use.
After a bit of searching on eBay classifieds, I found a lightly used (e.g. ridden for ~ 700 km) set of DT Swiss CR 1600 SPLINE 23 wheels for a decent price. These things don’t come cheap when new and the person selling them had used them on a Canyon Inflite AL as well, before upgrading to carbon rims.
For me, this is ideal because a) I know that these will fit my bike well, b) changing between wheels for road and off road use is going to be almost seamless with no need to readjust the brakes or the rear derailleur (I’m using the same Shimano XT CS-M8000 11–40 cassette on the road set up, and c) these rims will likely last me for years.
I’ve ridden the existing set I have hard over the past two years and while they do have a couple of scratches and one of two dings, I have not yet managed to get them out of true.
In addition to that the DT Swiss Ratchet freewheel system is great to ride and easy to service. Having it on both wheel sets is another bonus.
Oh and my Clement/Donelly X’Plor MSO tyres have made a quicker comeback than I expected. Yes, they’re not dedicated road tyres but they are starting to show signs of age anyway and I’m going to use them for winter riding, enjoying the extra grip they provide, instead of buying a new pair of road rubber.
It’s 1 AM and somehow a really large wasp gets into the flat, you go to fetch a glass and a bit of thick paper to catch it but lose sight of it, and then you knock on every high-up surface and ruffle ever piece of clothing to find it again, so the dogs don’t eat it at night.
I love how easy wide-angle lenses make capturing panoramic photos with interesting views/angles. Even though Bijou appears to have a big butt in this picture.
The next few weeks are going to be horrible for my waistline unless I’m going to keep myself in check and get enough exercise. I love the holiday season and I hate it at the same time.
Trees and shadows and a dog happy to be in the forest
We visited family over the weekend in a rather unplanned manner. On Saturday the weather was better than expected and we immediately used this opportunity to fuel up on some sun.
The northern part of the Kottenforst forest has suffered in the storms over the past few years and a lot of trees had to be cut down so it’s not the prettiest area to take a walk in right now but the seasons’s characterstics and low standing sun made for beautiful views.
I still find it hard to edit high-contrast scenes forest scenery like this to properly capture what I saw and the mood of the moment but these two came out pretty well.
Our two dogs (only Mika pictured here) had a lot of fun and their noses got a good workout because there’s still many wild animals in that area. Mika cracks me up every time because unless you capture her in action, she always looks like she’s posing.
(For those interested, all photos were shot with the Fujifilm X-Pro2 with the XF35mmF2 R WR lens and edited in Lightroom mobile with the Velvia film simulation. Side note about the last part: I find that LR’s version of Velvia has a slightly too strong magenta tinge so I typically remove 5–15 points in the white balance settings.)
I still haven’t gotten used to the naturally aspirated 4-cylinder boxer engine in front of the CVT of our new car. Coming from a torque converter automatic transmission and a turbo charged engine, this is quite a different feeling.
Oh my.
I just discovered that macOS now offers more highlight colours than before. Any selection on my machine is now in glorious purple and this makes me smile.
Gerade “Zeit der Geheimnisse” auf Netflix zu Ende geschaut. Schöne Miniserie, wirklich empfehlenswert.
I’m listening to the Matrix 2 & 3 soundtracks again because I can’t for the life of me remember which of the two had a track in it that reminds me of “aeterna fac” from Bruckner’s “Te Deum”. Been driving me loopy for a couple of weeks now.
Zefrank delivers. Every.Single.Time.
PetsTalk Holidays
Break Ya Neck by Busta Rhymes just came up in my recommendations in Deezer and the impulse to skip it because I had been in a quiet mood up until then, evaporated after the first few beats and now I’m sitting here bouncing my head.
The feeling of accomplishment I get disassembling a defective household appliance, determining the issue, fixing it, and finding the device usable again. Even if the only thing that needed to be done was soldering resistor back onto a board and it took 10 minutes at most.
I’m so here for this kind of riding. Smooth, hard-pack gravel going down a hill at speed. So much fun.
Es ist so ein Luxus einen Backshop mit wirklich guten Brötchen fußläufig zu haben. Schräg, dass dies in einer Tankstelle ist, aber hey.
Reading this makes me incredibly happy. Seeing that Twitterrific’s subscription scheme is resulting in solid revenue is great.
Twitterrific Subscriptions Going Well
Just saw an article about how Apple removed ratings from their online store. It mentioned that the various dongles receive a lot of negative feedback and in that moment I wanted to give the Lightning/Audio adapter a hug because it’s one of Apple’s best products.
200 Million Reasons to Watch 1Password by Rebecca Sadwick
I’m part of this team and the article captures the company pretty damn well.
First ride with the WTB NANO 40
On Wednesday, in an attempt to make good use of the surprisingly sunny weather, I took my gravel bike out for a first ride with the WTB Nano 40.
My recent experiment of using 650b × 47 mm tyres on my bike failed due to tyre rub on the left chain stay, yes, but it gave me a taste of what wider, higher-volume tyres with an aggressive tread could do for riding gravel and some tame singletrack. So after doing some research on 700×40c rubber, I had high hopes for the WTB NANO 40.
(I set up the tyres tubeless with Muc-Off’s No Puncture Hassle Tubeless Sealant and inflated them to 37 psi up front and 38 psi in the back referencing the handy tubeless tire pressure recommendations published by ENVE.)
For this outing I put together a 20 km route that I had ridden before, at least in parts, comprised of fire roads, some root-y singletrack, a few fast descents on what I thought was going to be either fire roads or well-worn foot paths. The bad news is that some of the paths had been shut down years ago and were very much overgrown and hard to navigate, the good news is that I was not only able to try the NANO 40 on loose, muddy, sloshy, puddle-dotted forest roads, I was also treated to a crazy fast descent on a 3 km hard pack and relatively dry gravel road.
After finishing the ride, I was left with two dominant feelings from this first experience with the NANO 40:
- What an insanely fun ride. These tyres did such a good job and provided loads of grip even in ankle-deep mud.
- You idiot. You had considered buying these almost two years ago when you replaced the Schwalbe X-One 33 mm tyres on the Canyon Inflite AL that brought you to gravel cycling in the first place but you didn’t do it because you were too chicken about trying a tubeless setup and the tread looked too aggressive.
So what did I learn?
For one that tubeless setups are the way to go for me moving forward, it seems.
Don’t get me wrong, the Donnelly X’Plor MSO 700×40c 120 TPI tube tyres I’ve ridden so far are crazy good. Having now ridden a properly supple and comparatively aggressively treaded tyre, I appreciate them even more. For a tubed tyre, they are very comfortable and robust even when ridden below the manufacturers specification of ~ 50 psi and they offer great traction within their limits.
Then there’s the realisation that once the fear of pinch flats is reduced and I embrace lower pressures, it opens up a lot more paths to ride. That said, I am going to increase the pressure in the back wheel for the next ride to 40 psi, because at 38 psi, it sometimes squirmed too much beneath me especially on faster, slightly rockier roads.
Lastly that I felt the NANO 40 provides a very good mix of a fast rolling 700c tyre and some serious grip on loose ground that the WTB Sendero 47 got me hooked on.
Oh and they look oh so nice on my bike 😏
Next week is going to be a good week
This is from one of my favourite web comics, Questionable Content by Jeph Jacques.
Diese neuen Knoppers-Riegel sind für mich in kürzester Zeit zu einer absoluten Suchtsüßigkeit geworden. Schlimm. Ich kriege nicht genug von den Dingern.
From my “hey, I’ve never gotten lost in the woods, why not give that a try”-ride two weeks ago. The light that day was strange to say the least but made for interesting pictures.
Steven Colbert's New Zealand Special, part 1
I’m not gonna lie, I was looking forward to this a lot. This man is such a huge Lord of the Rings fan, I’m surprised he hadn’t moved in with Peter Jackson years ago.
The first part of the New Zealand Special has Steven being picked up at the airport by New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and she really held her own in the interview that followed.
I thought I saw a tiny bit of Colbert’s old persona from The Colbert Report or his time at The Daily Show during the sit down and I kept grinning through it all.
I decided to set up macOS Catalina with a fresh install. It’ll allow me to rethink a couple of application choices and see what I actually need. One immediate positive is that I’ve been able to install Lightroom from the Mac App Store — no more Creative Cloud cruft.
Set up a pair of brand new WTB Nano 40c and I noticed that the front tyre has a slight imperfection in the left sidewall, in a place where the rubber was pressed into the mould. I’m hoping that the Muc Off tubeless sealant will take care of it.
On Sunday my ride ended with me literally getting lost in the woods for a bit because both Google Maps and my Wahoo Elemnt failed me. I need a bike computer with much better maps and navigation and I’m going to give the Hammerhead Karoo a try.
When you find out coincidentally that the theme you chose for your site renders Markdown footnotes beautifully. 👍🏻🤘🏻✊🏻🥳
The iPad is still being held back by its operating system and Apple isn't being straightforward about the why
My colleague and friend Mike sent me a link to an interview with Phil Schiller on c|net conducted by Roger Cheng. The core part of the interview concerns the new 16" MacBook Pro and the redesign of the keyboard away from Apple’s butterfly mechanism to an improved scissor mechanism. Later in the discussion, they talk about how iPads and Macs coexist and the purpose of each device. Schiller’s answer to a question about whether Apple can see the iPad and Mac merging like this:
No, that’s not our view. Because then you get this in-between thing, and in-between things are never as good as the individual things themselves. We believe the best personal computer is a Mac, and we want to keep going down that path. And we think the best tablet computing device is an iPad, and we’ll go down that path.
iPad benefits because we assume that you need to be able to do most everything with touch, and we don’t have to trade off on that experience. Mac assumes you want to do most everything with a keyboard and mouse input. We don’t have to trade off on that path. You can look at some of the other products that will try to go halfway between the two. They end up just compromising experiences. That’s not good.
I have a 12.9" 3rd generation iPad Pro. It’s a device that’s as close to my teenage self’s Star Trek P.A.D.D. dream as I could hope for. But what drove me to stop using iPads for a couple of years after the iPad Air 2 and what still bugs me, even in iPadOS, are the limitations Apple places on the software of the device and on the capabilities of third party software. The way Schiller frames the separation between iPads and Macs is based on the type of input and that, to me, misses the point.
Let me put it this way. When I was shopping for a new tablet at the beginning of the year, the decision to go for the top-of-the-line iPad Pro instead of an infinitely more capable Surface Pro 6 came down to two things:
- I put a gigantic amount of faith and € 2,000+ in Apple, hoping they would come through and at least add support for external storage with the next major release, as had been speculated. Thankfully, iPadOS delivered.
- The quality of third party software on iOS (and macOS), particularly from indie developers and once you venture outside of the big name applications, is still completely unmatched on Windows and in all areas: touch-friendliness, UX and UI design, etc.
On this I agree with Schiller: it’s important to have proper support for touch and proper support for mouse + keyboard in the devices you offer.
The best example sits in front of me daily; my lovely Surface Pro 2. This is a full-fledged Windows PC with all of the potential you expect it to have but using the operating system and third party applications in touch mode is a compromise at best and impossible at worst (and don’t even get me started on the schizophrenic nature of Windows 10 itself with a Settings app and the Control Panel app).
But the above also goes to show that it’s not a matter of the devices' form factor or input methods but a matter of having the operating system expose as much potential to the software running on it and enforcing a high standard of optimisation for the form factor and input methods.
Comparing a modern Surface Pro 7 to a current iPad Pro leaves me with this conclusion:
Windows 10 limits how comfortably I can accomplish my tasks but iPadOS still limits what tasks I can accomplish.
And this is what I continue to have issues with, this is the thing that drives me to pick up my MacBook Pro or my Surface Pro 2 for tasks as trivial as using some necessary extension in a browser like Brave 1, or quickly converting a video file I created on my camera into a different format, or adding new music to the Music app on my iPad, or inspecting the code of my website right in the browser I’m using. Tasks that the iPad, as a device, is absolutely capable of but that iPadOS keeps me from doing.
-
I am fully aware of the fact that allowing extensions and other features common on Windows and macOS needs to be done carefully because of the security and privacy implications. That still doesn’t excuse, in my opinion, why Apple hasn’t made any visible efforts to solve these problems on a platform that’s been around for over 12 years. ↩︎
584×47 mm — my beautiful but failed experiment
A couple of weeks ago I had the idea to buy a second wheel set for Battle Cat, my gravel bike, to expand the where I can ride it. The plan was to keep the 700c wheel set I’ve been riding for the past two years for longer gravel rides or for road riding (using road tyres, obviously). I would then buy a 650b/27.5” wheel set and a pair of wider tyres with more bite to venture into more gnarly terrain.
I inquired with the frame manufacturer what tyre width would be safe to use in the frame and set out to find a good, used wheel set from DT Swiss because I’ve had nothing but great experiences with these so far. After being told that 1.9“ or 4.83 cm wide tyres should work and still provide enough clearance, I quickly settled on the WTB Sendero 650b × 47 mm pneus.
The result was this sexy setup:
The wheel set I found was an older pair DT Swiss M1700 MTB wheels with a decent internal rim width and the Ratchet Free Hub System. There was a bit of a setback when I found out that the last person to service the hind wheel didn’t just fail to remove a massive radial run-out, they also centred the rim over the hub body and not over the axle, resulting in a rim that was too far on the left. After getting this fixed for a good amount of money, putting the tyres on tubeless and the wheels into the frame, I saw that it was a tight fit but doable with no tyre rub on the frame or fork.
Well, that changed after the first 15 km of singletrack riding on Saturday. I pushed the tyres the way you would and to my great dismay, they expanded/deformed in a way that caused tyre rub on the left chain stay twice in one revolution on a perfectly true back wheel.
What I’m left with is the choice to either sell the wheel set and tyres again or to find slightly smaller but equally gnarly tyres for the wheels. The problem here, of course, is that smaller tyres also mean an even smaller wheel diameter and a further lowering of the bottom bracket, something that already took getting used to going from 700×40c to 584×47c on the Litespeed T5 Gravel frame I’m riding.
There’s one silver lining to all of this, albeit a fact that left me with a very substantial urge to slam my head into my desk repeatedly because I could’ve saved myself the trouble of buying another wheel set:
I started checking out which 700×40c rubber is available that would give me better grip on wet forest floor than the Donnelly X’Plor MSO I love so much. I found a number of options, the WTB Nano 40 being the supposed best among them when set up tubeless. The only issue is that WTB recommends running these tyres on a rim with at least 20 mm internal width and my [DT Swiss CR1600 Spline db](DT Swiss - CR 1600 SPLINE® 23) wheels are 22 mm wide externally … … … or so I thought.
Turns Out ™ I had misread the specs of the wheels because the spec sheet of the bike I bought them on didn’t specify whether the 22 mm were internal or external width figures. Long story short, they have an internal width of 22 mm, meaning they are right in the goldilocks zone width not just for the WTB Nano 40 but for many other ~ 40 mm wide, supple gravel tyres.
I’m likely going to try and get my hands on the Nanos if I can find them for a decent price and maybe, just maybe I’ll get my wish of a gravel bike capable of some gnarlier paths but still fast when I need it to be.
Goodbye 650b wheels, I hardly knew ye.
Is it fine to call the Zeiss ZX1 vapourware at this point?
When it was announced at Photokina, I was so incredibly excited to see a proper successor to the Sony RX1R Mark II happen but there have been no announcements since. 😔
This may be a bit meta but I wonder if Apple is keeping new styles of Memoji in their backpocket to coax people into updating iOS when they need to push out a crucial security update, like WhatsApp did a while back.
Apple’s AirPods are disposable and they shouldn‘t be
Last week I came across an article by Geoffrey A. Fowler in the Washington Post titled „Everyone’s AirPods will die. We’ve got the trick to replacing them.“ (thanks to Dave Mark of The Loop for bringing it up).
Sadly, the title is not just slightly clickbait-y, it also belies the sensible discussion about the viability of AirPods the article contains. Fowler goes into detail about how and when the batteries in AirPods tend to stop performing and then dives into an analysis of the economic circumstances and environmental implications of a product like the AirPods.
Fowler quotes a rule by Kyle Wiens, CEO of the repair website iFixit.com, that has stuck with me for the past few days:
The life span of an expensive, resource-intensive gadget shouldn’t be limited to the life span of one consumable component. You wouldn’t buy an electric toothbrush where you couldn’t replace the brush. Or a car with glued-on tires.
Sadly and also predictably, the new AirPods Pro are made to be just as disposable as their predecessors (and just like any other pair of wireless earbuds on the market right now).
I bought my AirPods a little over two years ago. These little things are a brilliant gadget with decent sound and when pairing works as it should, they’re the pinnacle of convenience. They’ve also been in almost daily use since I purchased them then and the battery life is accordingly bad at this point: I get less than 1.5 hours of listening or calls out of them nowadays.
When I purchased them, I knew full well that the battery was not replaceable and to be honest, I’m kind of mad at myself that I put convenience over the longevity, repairability, and recyclability of a device. Typically everything I buy needs to be either repairable and if for some reason that’s not feasible, it has be long-lasting and recyclable.
Case in point: in writing this article I remembered that I bought a pair of EarPods a couple of days after they were released in September 2012 and that pair lasted me almost six years — yes, I treat my earphones carefully.
I’m going to keep using my AirPods until the finally give out or rather until the battery life is so bad that it negates any kind of convenience these truly wireless earphones offer and I’m going to go back to wired earphones with an in-line remote for casual listening. I still have two pairs of completely new EarPods that came with my iPhones over the years in a drawer (one with the lightning plug and one with a standard 3.5 mm plug), or I might splurge on the Campfire Audio Comet.
Two reviews of the Quoc Gran Tourer gravel cycling shoes and my own two cents
Two comprehensive reviews of the Quoc Gran Tourer have cropped up on sites that I frequently read.
Quoc Gran Tourer Review: Rocks, Gravel, Dust, And Puddles
by Cass Gilbert on Bikepacking.com
A Summer of Riding in the Quoc Gran Tourer All-Terrain Gravel Bike Shoes
by John Watson on The Radavist
I’ve been using the Quoc Gran Tourer for over a year now and up until I saw these two reviews, I had thought of writing my own but I found that the assessment of the shoes by these two persons mirrors my own closely enough that there are only two things I would add:
- Fit wise, I have moderately wide feet and I appreciate having ample room in the toe box. The Gran Tourers deliver in this area, all the while the lacing system allows me to perfectly tie the shoes so they’re comfortable yet stay firmly on my feet all day long.
- It takes quite a bit for water to seep into these shoes but once they’re wet, it takes very long for them to properly dry.
I’ve taken these shoes through quite a lot yet they still show only minimal signs of wear on the upper and they’ve only gotten more comfortable with use. I’m very satisfied with the shoes.
So, eben endlich Fördermitglied bei der Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte geworden. Ist echt notwendig, wenn ich mir den Murks anschaue, den die Regierung so in den letzten Jahren verzapft.
What an absolutely stunning paint job. I want a Cannondale Slate but the geometry isn’t for me. This is giving me serious bike envy, even though I adore Battle Cat, my titanium gravel bike.
A new Spider-Verse movie has been announced
Sony/Marvel announced a new Spider-Verse movie and I’m so happy this is coming. Even though we’ll all have to be patient because the film’s release is scheduled for 2022.
“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” has quickly become one of my comfort food films. I don’t remember when a movie made it onto this list so quickly and I must’ve watched it more than 10 times already.
Can’t wait.
April 8, 2022 🕷 #SpiderVerse pic.twitter.com/FC5nVIuciB
— Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse (@SpiderVerse) November 1, 2019
Watching “The Shape of Water”. I love Michael Shannon in the role of a dirtbag.
It’s 2 Nov and I have had “Have yourself a merry little Christmas” stuck in my head for the past three days. 🤦🏻♂️🎄
I won’t be riding Battle Cat, my gravel bike, with the new wheel set for a while because it turns out that the person who built the back wheel must’ve been an amateur and didn’t center the rim over the axle but over the core of the hub. It’s off center by 2 cm. 😣
Ich trat hier in Trier eben aus meiner Tür und irgendwie roch es auf eine Weise nach Instantkaffee, die mich gedanklich direkt in meine Schulzeit in Mainz transportiert hat. Dort roch es im Umkreis von mehreren Kilometern um die Nescafe-Fabrik in Mombach regelmäßig so.
With a bit of luck I’ll be making a few modifications to my bike later today. (The back wheel is in service to have a radial run-out fixed.)
This interview with Queen Latifah on Colbert’s show was a pleasure to watch. The woman is an inspiration.
What a beauty.
2019 Grinduro: Olivetti Drop Bar MTB
That moment when you bought a DT Swiss wheelset and find out that you already have the thru axle conversion adapter you will need for the front wheel from a previous project.
Ach du grüne Neune.
Der Zugbegleiter hier im ICE nach Nürnberg spricht im Dialekt, der alde Hesse.
Hallo Mainz!
Als Radfahrer wünsche ich mir gut ausgebaute Radwege, damit ich schnell und sicher von A nach B komme.
Als Autofahrer wünsche ich mir gut ausgebaute Radwege, damit ich schnell und entspannt von A nach B komme und Radfahrer in Sicherheit weiß.
This was a short but satisfying and satisfyingly muddy lunch gravel ride. I should do this more often.
I miss the 2nd generation butterfly keyboard of my old 2016 MacBook Pro so much. Best keyboard I’ve ever used and while the mechanism is similar on the iPad Pro Smart Keyboard and damn good for a keyboard of this type, it still feels much less precise.
Turns out that I’ve been riding my bike(s) every day for the past two weeks in some shape or form. Some longer rides, some shopping rides, some just going to the local coworking space. Still, it makes me very happy to get some pedaling in daily.
I just realised that I haven’t sat down to just listen to an entire orchestral soundtrack/classical album/any album really in a few weeks. I need to make time on the weekend to get lost in some good music.
Just ordered an Ultegra 12–25 cassette and a Wolftooth 18 tooth cog replacement. I’ll try to combine this with my existing XT 11–40 cassette to create a cassette with very tight high gears and sensibly even spacing in the lower gears: 12-13-14-15-18-21-24-27-31-35-40
First ride impressions: Salsa Cowchipper gravel bike handlebar
When I built up my gravel bike, Battle Cat, I decided to stick with the Canyon H17 Al Ergo handlebar at least for a while because I wasn‘t keen on re-wrapping a new bar and I had, up until then, been pretty happy with it. Recent longer outings with more singletrack sections made me curious about the flared drop bars that have become increasingly popular among gravel and cross cyclists. After quite a bit of research, I decided to buy the Salsa Cowchipper Deluxe.
Yesterday I went out for the first proper ride and the route I picked was a mix of gravel tracks, forest and wine yard paths, and some broken asphalt roads. All of it wet, slippery, loose, and muddy from three days of nearly constant heavy rain.
On the first kilometre everything felt strange. The suddenly angled hoods and brake levers, the flare of the bars (24°), the different transition from the flat bar to the hood to the drops, and all of it combined with the Tune Dahu Skin bar tape.
This completely evaporated once I went up the first singletrack climb. The path was parts muddy, parts wet slippery slate pieces that required careful line choice going up and equally careful weight distribution so as not to lose traction riding on 700×40c Donnelly X’Plor MSO tyres already at 3.5 bar.
The flared bars allowed me to get into a wide and low stance, staying seated the whole time. The first fast decent on a muddy path increased the feeling of control on the bike and sections that I would have typically ridden with my hands on the hoods, I took in the drops because the reduced distance between hoods and drops, combined with the overall different shape of the assembly had me riding less hunched over.
So far so good. I’m going for a longer gravel ride on the weekend that will hopefully be less wet and I’m looking forward to seeing how I feel about the handlebar after 40+ km in the saddle compared to a quick 16 km ride.
I have made a grave mistake.
Prepared a tea post bike ride, a sample pack that I still had laying around. Looked at the packaging, deemed it interesting, made a cup. After the first few gulps I took a closer look at the ingredients: … guarana … green tea …
It‘s 20:57. 🤦🏻♂️
I had an amazing Sunday:
Slept in, went for a long, rainy hike with my partner and our dogs, fitted a new handlebar and new bar tape to my gravel bike, ate really tasty lasagne soup (yes, that exists), and watched “Raising Dion” on Netflix curled up comfortably on our couch.
Cooked some curry and listened to “The Whiteness Album" by Nato Green (standup comedy). Really worth it. Check it out if you can.
I’m rewatching the 6th season of Downton Abbey ahead of catching the movie in the cinema. Every time Dame Maggie Smith appears on screen, I cannot help but cheer. This woman is an incredible actress.
Hmmm… 🤔
Thinking about replacing the crankset and 36/46 chainring I have with a 30/46 combination and then going back to a 11–30 Ultegra cassette from the 11–40. I found recently that I appreciate having smaller steps between gears.
It’s disappointing how few backpacks (including Peak Design’s packs) and even fewer proper hiking backpacks have a good place to attach the Peak Design Capture Clip. I missed having my camera clipped to the molle on the left shoulder strap on my Goruck GR0 so much.
Mika is such a gentle dog. She’s afraid of rivers and streams. While Bijou drank heartily from a stream on yesterday’s hike, I fetched water in a bowl for Mika who waited a good 10 m from the stream. She drank her fill and when she was done, gave me a “thank you” lick on my hand.
It’s become increasingly clear to me, using my X-Pro2 with the XF23mmF1.4 (my favourite), that if Fujifilm were to release a X100F successor with a slightly better lens (f/2 or just better sharpness at close distances) and weather resistance (!), I would purchase it instantly.
Has anyone seen this kind of behaviour?
iPhone 7+ with a new Apple-installed battery (100% health) set down at 01:00 in Energy Saver Mode at 85% charge. Woke up at 09:30 to find the battery at 15% charge. No info on runaway processes during that time and no apparent data usage.
Wie war das? Unser Geruchssinn hat eine direktere Verbindung zum Gedächtniszentrum des Gehirns als die anderen Sinne? Denn als ich eben eine Grünkernbratlingmischung für vegetarische Burger angesetzt habe, hat es mich gedanklich zurück zum Küchendienst im Kindergarten versetzt.
Turns out, Chuck the coworking space dog is a very patient photo subject. This is anthropomorphization par excellence, I know, but he looks so pensive in these pictures.
“Jokes Seth Can’t Tell” with something I really didn’t know about lesbians. 💍🤯😂
Hint: Amber Ruffin and Henny Hagel are excellent, as always.
Oh this is just delicious.
Instagram just sent me a spam email because I’ve been away for so long. The email also included a “You have 1 like.” line to entice me to check who graced one of my photos with social affirmation.
Bijou is such a very good girl.
She just let me scale her upper jaw’s teeth without even so much as flinching. We’ve been using a toothpaste/balm after each evening’s tooth cleaning and it really helped soften the calcular deposits.
This just came up in my recommendations in Deezer and I’m sitting here dancing in my chair, banging my head: The Struts — Body Talks
song.link/i/1435805…
Another reason to love my Goruck GR0:
My father borrowed my Billingham camera bag whose insert I often use in a molle pouch attached to the internal molle rows of the GR0 to carry my camera. So now I attach the X-Pro2 directly to the molle using my Peak Design Capture Clip.
Eben einen Spaziergang im Kottenforst gemacht. Das ist eine ganz tolle Cyclocrosstrainingsstrecke. Wege mit unterschiedlichem Untergrund, glitschige Wurzeln, Äste zum Üben von bunny hops und viele umgestürzte Bäume, bei denen abgestiegen werden muss.
This is how I started into my day after a night at a trekking camp. Slept quite well in the tent, despite hunting going on in the area and moderately heavy rainfall. Still, good coffee is important and I’m happy that I didn’t sell the AeroPress two years ago.
Smelling my dog on her head is so calming. She smells like a dog should smell. I believe this is something almost only people who like dogs can appreciate.
We are rapidly approaching temperatures not conducive to wearing sandals all the time. I’m not sure how I’m going to cope.
Kleine Beobachtung:
Mein Fahrradlicht hat einen sehr breiten Lichtkegel. Wenn ich bei Dunkelheit unterwegs bin, machen alle motorisierten Verkehrsteilnehmer einen Bogen um die äußerste Stelle des Lichtkegel herum. Finde ich gut. 🚴🏻♂️
This is Chuck, the Frenchie of the owner of the ZWO65 coworking space I‘m at, signaling me to put down everything and play fetch.
Quick review: Topeak ROADIE DA G and 700×40c tyres
In your typical cyclist’s quest to simplify my setup and reduce the things that I carry on rides, I went out to look for a compact, pocketable pump with an integrated pressure gauge. There are a number of options, but none of them have had particularly good reviews – at least not judging by what I was able to find. Most annoyingly, very few reviews even consider the accuracy of the integrated gauge, stating that it’s good enough for (off-)road side repairs.
The Topeak ROADIE DA G is a fairly recent release and being happy with a few other of their products, I decided to give it a go.
Basics
The pump pushes air into the tyre when pushing and pulling on the barrel, which, theortically should help fill the tyre more quickly. The barrel is made out of aluminium, other parts of the pump are made from shock-resistant plastic. Being a road bike pump, it’s equipped with a Presta valve head.
Thoughts
I’ve used this pump fairly extensively at this point and all things considered, it’s a good pump. It’s compact, doesn’t stick out of a jersey pocket too far and even fits into some saddle bags. The included bottlge cage mount is solid and has held up across a number of hard gravel rides already.
I was very happy to find that the pressure gauge is quite accurate. Comparing it with a dedicated digital gauge and the gauge in my floor pump, it yielded almost identical results when I aimed to hit 𝑥.0 Bar or 𝑥.𝑥 Bar on the gauge. This allowes me to much more accurately and quickly get my tyres up to the desired pressure than doing the “pump, pump, pump, detach pump, attach gauge, check pressure, detach gauge, pump some more, check again” spiel.
One thing I consider a downside is the pump’s barrel getting very hot when reaching pressures of 3.2 Bar and up. I’m guessing it’s fine when you’re wearing gloves but more than a couple of times when nearing 4 Bar, I had to stop pumping to let the barrel cool down a bit.
Suitability for 700×40c tyres
The bigger issue from my perspective is the suitability for tyres typically used on gravel bikes. Both my bikes use 700×40c and I tend to vary the pressure depending on the terrain I ride on. Getting this kind of pneu to a pressure beyond 3.5 Bar is hard work and both the pump and I struggle with it.
This issue isn’t limited to the ROADIE DA G, however. Right now, most manufacturers of pumps distinguish between high-volume pumps for mountain bike tyres, and high-pressure pumps for road bikes. Tyres for gravel bikes/adventure bikes/bicycle touring fall somewhere in between and I haven’t yet seen any pump that delivers good results for 700×36c–700×50c tyres.
So it looks like I’m going to reactivate my AeroPress for upcoming camping trips. Does anyone have recommendations for use and process while on the go?
“Thor: Ragnarok” is such a great movie. I just stumbled across a GIF from the arena scene and immediately want to watch it again.
Simon and James of GCN attempt to burn 10,000 calories in one ride
This feat by Simon and James of GCN is truly something. About two weeks ago I did my hardest ride, yet, burning 4,200+ calories in the process. I was wiped out after and it took three days for my legs to properly recover.
Dear mosquitoes,
Thank you so much for reminding me just how annoying a sting to the earlobe is. It’s been itchy all day.
holyshitholyshitholyshit, a new trailer for “Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker” dropped and I’m having serious trouble containing my excitement for this movie.
I laughed so hard at this, it devolved into a coughing fit. Beautifully absurd: twitter.com/keithedwa…
One of the best features of iPhones 7 and later is the waterproofing. The option to simply wash it carefully when it gets dirty or sweaty is very useful.
Spent my first night properly camping in many years. It was nice to see that the lack of certain amenities still doesn’t bother me at all.
I did realise once again, though, that the importance of good coffee cannot be overstated.
Letting the day wind down re-watching “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” for what feels like the umpteenth time. This movie is so.damn.good. It’s part of my comfort food stories now.
I finally convinced myself to upgrade to a new handlebar on Battle Cat, my gravel bike. After a bit of research, I opted for the @salsacycles Cowchipper in carbon and 440 mm. New handlebar tape and cable housings are also on their way. Excited to try all of it.
Recognising and preventing right wing radicalization of young white boys on the internet
My friend Nik retweeted this Twitter thread by Joanna Schroeder a couple of days ago and it stuck with me. A more or less coordinated but definitely intense campaign has been going on online for a number of years now that primes young males to fall for and consider right wing, fascist, hateful ideologies and the groups that propagate them their only safe haven, the only place that understands them. This exploits a pervasive culture of toxic masculinity and preys on young males in their fragile emotional states, driven by their craving for recognition and acceptance.
The thread explores a number of avenues are used by hate groups and right wing radicals and proposes a few ways to combat this. Please read it and if you’re inclined follow the various links to similar research and journalistic coverage of this radicalization campaign.
Do you have white teenage sons?
— joanna schroeder (@iproposethis) August 13, 2019
Listen up.
I've been watching my boys' online behavior & noticed that social media and vloggers are actively laying groundwork in white teens to turn them into alt-right/white supremacists.
Here's how:
Hard to imagine but Balvenie Caribbean Cask gets even better with a few drops of cold, clean water in the glass. Didn’t think that was possible. 🥃
Juhu! Die ersten neuen Ernten diverser in Europa angebauter Apfelsorten trudeln ein.
Ich finde es zunehmend schlimm so viel Obst und Gemüse aus Übersee in Supermärkten zu sehen und versuche tunlichst nichts davon zu kaufen.
Relistening to episode 4117 of The Bugle, because it was so damn funny. Would’ve loved to witness this one live. Andy Zaltzman’s guests this week were Aditi Mittal and Nish Kumar.
Ich sitze im Jahreszeiten auf dem Petrisberg in Trier und da unten in der Konzertmuschel ist eine kleine Band und eine Gruppe seltsam gekleideter Personen. Die singen irgendwas von Blut trinken und Auferstehung. Also entweder Christen oder Vampire.
This was a fun Saturday:
Slept in, had a nice breakfast out, bought some camping gear for a few upcoming trips, had tasty dinner, and spent almost two hours doing maintenance on my two bicycles including swapping tyres front to back/back to front on Battle Cat, the gravel bike.
Such a great track:
Blackway & Black Caviar — What’s Up Danger
Once aspect I enjoy about today’s cycling culture in general and gravel cycling in particular, is the almost universal acceptance, nay, encouragement to wear ridiculously loud socks. These aren’t even the brightest ones I have. 😜🤘🏻🚴🏻♂️
It’s hard to overstate how amazing bed linen made from Tencel/Lyocell is to sleep in, especially in the warmer months.
Amazon hat für die deutsche Synchronisation von „The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel“ sehr gute Übersetzer/Schreiber gefunden. Hinter den allerwenigsten Konversationen und hinter fast keinem Witz höre ich eine amerikanische Herkunft. Sowas erlebe ich selten. Toll.
I can’t not think of the Quicksilver scene from X-Men anymore when listening to “Sweet Dreams” by Eurythmics. Such a great song, such a great scene.
Backing up a Mac with SuperDuper! to an external SSD is so satisfying. This little bugger is managing a consistent write speed of ~ 270 MB/s and just finished a 700+ GB backup in under 45 minutes.
Hinweis:
Meine Lieblingswetterapp CARROT Weather kann seit Kurzem die Wetterdaten der Meteo Group nutzen. Das macht die Vorhersagen für Deutschland meiner Einschätzung nach endlich brauchbarer.
Trocknerbälle sind schon eine tolle Erfindung. Damit werden meine Frotteetücher flauschiger als bei Nutzung von Weichspüler.
My iPhone 7 Plus has a new battery and I hope I’m going to continue to use it for a couple more years. That means I can buy more cases for it, right? Right?!?
Tehehehe, handed my iPhone 7 Plus to an Apple Genius and they essentially told me that the battery is so weak that it’s out of their area of measurement. Looking forward to how long it’ll last now.
I showed my partner the magic that is the GIPHY iMessage app earlier today and all I can think now is: “I’ve created a monster!”
I’ve been running the Shimano Ultegra R8000 group for well over a year and only now discovered that I hadn’t even touched the reach adjustment screw. 🤦🏻♂️ Apparently I’m still a road bike n00b.
A humbling experience, yes, but now I’ll feel much safer descending in the drops.
I found a couple of old pins while looking for something in the cellar yesterday and now I can’t decide which one of these to put on my Goruck backpack next to my 1Password pin.
Looking at reviews for small pumps with a pressure gauge, not one of the articles had good info on the accuracy of the manometer. So I ordered the Topeak Roadie DA_G at my local shop to give it a try myself.
Just saw the announcement for the KUVRD camera strap show up on mirrorless rumors and I can‘t help but be disappointed how very closely the design resembles the Peak Design Slide.
I love Bijou so much. She’s the most chill dog I’ve ever met. Today’s example:
We shortened her claws before the morning walkies and she didn’t bat an eyelash.
I’m very happy about the rain we had over the last two days and the fact that it cooled down to bearable temperatures.
Muahahaha, I’m all caught up on Questionable Content. Didn’t have the time or inclination to read a lot of comics for a while and got to binge-read about 100 of them today. So good.
Wer mich am Freitagabend um 18:30 Uhr sucht, findet mich auf dem Viehmarktplatz in Trier. #CriticalMass
Habe mir gerade eine große Flasche Sencha Schlaflos-Eistee mit Orangensaft, gepresster Zitrone, und Honig gemacht. Es ist zwar heiß, aber das bedeutet nicht, dass ich nicht müde sein kann.
Powerful song, I enjoy it every time it comes up: Body Count — Black Hoodie
Nice! My second pair of @BedrockSandals Cairn just arrived. They’ll join my already well-worn orange ones and will help me solidify the tan lines on my feet.
We have a houseguest at the moment: my parents’ dog Lacey. Seen here wearing the new harness we bought her. I think it suits her very well.
This was a successful weekend:
- Binged Stranger Things 3
- Went for long walks with the dogs
- Cooked good food
- Ate more ice cream in two days than I have in the past two years
- Cleaned and prepared my two bikes for the next week
- Culled photos
- Slept a lot
So, I’ve been posting my favourite photos on my site on a monthly basis and while I’m still only at August 2017, I’m contemplating posting the photos in the M.b feed as they come and then doing a summary at the end of the month. Thoughts?
Ugh. Just made the mistake to read the comments under a post about a recent change to 1Password on a popular German IT news site. Let’s just say that you can find ample confirmation for the existence of the Dunning-Kruger Effect in there.
Hinweis:
Aldi Süd verkauft unter deren Eigenmarke „Grandessa“ diverse Eissorten im 500 ml-Becher, die nicht zu Hälfte Luft sind wie bei allen großen Marken (Landliebe, Mövenpick, Langnese, Schöller, etc.).
I absolutely adore Apple’s Butterfly keyboard switches. To me they offer the best typing experience of any laptop/tablet keyboard out there, even better than those of my past ThinkPads. Hopefully this Smart Keyboard Cover will last as long as the price suggests.
Good end to a work day:
Sitting on the couch on my balcony, my dog curled up next to me, a glass of my favourite whisky in my hand, the last remnants of daylight dwindling, watching a few minutes of a comfort food movie before heading to bed.
On the one hand I applaud Deezer for offering up such diverse music in “Flow” (essentially a “recommended for you” mix) but on the other hand some of the choices have been weird, to put it mildly.
So that ride yesterday was something. My legs are still completely empty. Walked the dogs this morning and a small incline over 300 m was enough to make them hurt. I might actually get sore legs tomorrow. Haven’t had that in years.
Essentially a whisky run
This ride turned out harder than expected but it was still fun for a number of reasons: 1. My stamina is improving. Not only did I survive an unplanned and slightly sketchy climb on a largely unused fire road after I took a wrong turn, I later also managed to hold a 46+13 gearing and ~ 89 rpm on a flat paved road with a headwind for 8 km.2. Planning the trip, Komoot added two pieces of trail to the ride that I didn’t know about. One really nice and flowy part of forest singletrack and one ascent that I always wondered about when taking my regular route through the Mattheiser Wald; it looked too overgrown to ride on my gravel bike but is actually an almost mellow ascent but for the loose gravel.3. One of my goals was to buy a bottle of whisky because I’ve been out of that particular one for a while. I managed to snag a bottle, so carrying my insanely heavy lock with me for this tour was worth it after all.4. Still not happy with the way I carry my Fujifilm X70 with me on rides but very much happy I brought it. The photo files are so much more flexible than what my iPhone offers, even when shooting RAW.
A quick recommendation for people interested in gravel cycling.
Katherine Moore works for the Global Cycling Network and pops up in front of the camera not nearly enough but she has an infectious enthusiasm and her writing style is great: katherinebikes.com
Trier is currently experiencing the first instance of consistent rain in weeks. I’m very happy about it and plants and animals will be, too.
Got stung by a bee about 10 km into today’s ride. Poor thing flew into my right shorts leg, panicked immediately and stung the inside of my thigh. Just arrived back home and noticed that the stinger was still in there. That’s no way to go.
I hate my brain sometimes.
Looked at a bag on a site just now, thought I should read up on it a bit, and without thinking correctly typed the URL of the manufacturer that I only visited twice in the past. Ugh.
My friend Julie is an avid cyclist and she names her bikes. I thought it was time to do the same and my brain immediately went to the silliest option:
The titanium gravel bike is now called “Battle Cat” and the black-anodised aluminium commuter bike listens to “Panthor”.
With the Stickermule marketplace defunct, does anyone know of a source for high quality sticker from independent artists? Or has Redbubble improved their quality in any meaningful way?
Bicycle vanity (or: the 90s want their anodised parts back)
I think my gravel bike is finally complete. I had a perfectly good stem and stem cap on the bike before but for some reason I didn’t like the diameter of the stem tube in relation to the diameter of the seat post. It didn’t look right. So… I replaced it with the “Tune Geiles Teil 4.0” stem and a CNC-machined Tune stem cap that matches the colour of the Chris King headset quite well.
I think I’ve gone a little bit crazy with the red anodized parts on this bike but then again, I love how it looks and if I’m perfectly honest, yes, the bike has to ride well but I also have to like looking at it.
All while installing these parts and doing a few other bits of maintenance on the bike, I couldn’t get this song out of my head. 🎶 🚵♂️
Lunch (bottom to top):
Toast, mayonnaise, tomato slices, avocado cream, halloumi cheese, fried egg, barbecue sauce, toast.
Wieder eine sehr gute Folge „Der Tag“. Ich teile Josef Bramls Einschätzungen zum modus operandi der USA und der Situation in Nord Korea/Iran uneingeschränkt.
I love this furry monster so much. She’s a total pillow dog and loves having something soft to rest her head on. This comes in handy quite often because we can signal to her that she can rest at a place we’re currently at.
First proper outing with the gravel bike in a couple of weeks. Not an easy ride with temperatures already above 25°C at 0900 but I managed to set a new personal best for a rather gruelling climb. 🚴🏻♂️
I really cannot say enough good things about the Campfire Andromeda earphones. So well made, such an amazing sound, and so easy to drive.
They deliver as good a sound using the Apple Lightning/USB-C dongles as they do when attached to a good portable DAC/amp.
This week’s “Jokes Seth Can’t Tell” segment was absolutely delightful. youtu.be/7oWSZ2goY…
Just made the realisation that Shimano Ultegra R8000 shifting performance > SRAM NX Eagle shifting performance. By quite a margin, too. Judged on its own the NX Eagle shifts impressively well. Now I’m kind of curious how much better SRAM’s high-end group sets shift.
The left pedal’s spindle showed more wear than the right one and didn’t have enough grease in the body. Hopefully, having disassembled, cleaned, copiously lubricated, reassembled, and adjusted them, these pedals will still last me many KMs.
Now my gravel bike has red shoes. 👠 😜
About to disassemble, clean, lubricate, and reassemble this used pair of HT D1 pedals I bought as a replacement for the ones that I moved from my gravel bike to my new commuter bike. They’re in a worse state than the seller specified and I hope there are no bad surprises waiting.
Any idea if there’s a way to use an iPad as the display for a Raspberry Pi 4 with a wired connection instead of a VNC? I’m curious if there’s a way to recreate something like the defunct Kangaroo Mobile Desktop.
Just thought fondly of my old Compaq iPaq H3670 PDA with its transflective display that was easily readable even in bright sunlight and then I remembered that it didn’t have flash storage and back then we didn’t have USB power banks. The ever present fear of losing your data. 🙃
Went to watch „X-Men: Dark Phoenix“ yesterday evening. Overall good movie, quite enjoyable, with good effects, and I appreciated that they took more time to dwell on Xavier‘s guilt and Jean‘s struggle. Not sure about the villains, though, they didn’t really do it for me. 🍿
Had to send in my Fujifilm X-Pro2. I noticed during the vacation in Norway that the eye relief which is supposed to stay in place had become movable and at one point it partially detached itself. I know it’s in good hands and will be repaired but I still miss having the camera here, I rarely leave the flat without it.
I absolutely love the Butterfly keyboard switches Apple has put into the MacBook Pros and the iPad Smart Keyboard Covers. So amazing to type on and such a positive feedback. Too bad the one in the MacBooks are so absolutely easy to gunk up.
After having getting used to modern Shimano shifting setups again over the past year or so, I can definitely say that I find SRAM shifting much easier to tune. There are fewer screws to turn, and the derailleur operation makes more sense than on Shimano’s models.
Ugh. 😕
The new/used saddle I ordered for the bike re-build project is overdue and it keeps me from having a usable bike. Tomorrow I’m expecting a few final componentes, including a SpurCycle Bell.
So it looks like the U.S. has started exporting the “dude bro” to Germany. I just spotted two jacked specimens outside on the parking lot exercising/posing topless, interchangeable but for the colour of their shorts, sunglasses, sneakers, socks, and caps put on backwards.
I’m still sitting at work but Deezer certainly thinks that I’m partying. The mix I’m being given in Flow is lots of party music and hip hop. Typing is hard when you’re banging your head to the beat.
Well this is just peachy. I just found out that the latest iOS update seems to have completely screwed my iCloud Photos database. Pictures that have long been deleted, including RAWs from my cameras have been restored. It’s one giant mess. Ugh.
Curse you, Microsoft, for making it damn near impossible to type an em/en dash or an ellipsis in Windows on a keyboard without a NUM pad or without breaking any kind of writing flow, for that matter. Thank Q for TextExpander.
Just a quick recommendation for anyone who likes standup comedy:
Emmy Blotnick’s “Party Nights” song.link/album/i/1…
I had the pleasure of seeing her live in NYC a few years back and I love her presentation and jokes.
The commuter/shopping/dog-trailer-pulling bike project is taking shape. I’m just really anxious that the chain line won’t work out, using the full SRAM NX Eagle group on this CX frame with a PressFit 86 bottom bracket.
While culling and editing pictures from my most recent vacation, I realised again how much I’ve learned to appreciate the ProNegHigh film simulation (with a bit of work on the shadows). The contrast is nice and the presentation of blues and greens is pleasant, too.
This week’s WWDC is going to be a make-or-break situation for me. It’s going to determine whether I will continue to consider Apple’s tablets worthwhile or if I’m going to move to a Microsoft Surface Pro once they release one with USB-C/Thunderbolt 3.
After apparently no one was interested in the frame set of my Canyon CX bike, I took it off the market and I’m going to rebuild it as a city bike with a flat bar, fenders, and a 1x setup. Just got a good deal on a new pair of DT Swiss endurance bike wheels. Here we go.
One of the worst things about trying to find an accommodation on Booking.com is their awful practice of showing you places that aren’t available for your chosen dates/filters and rubbing it in your face.
Der Begriff „Apothekenpreise“ sollte durch „Tankstellenpreise“ abgelöst werden. Ich wollte gestern auf der Heimfahrt eine Red Bull Simply Cola kaufen und an zwei Tankstellen war der Preis für eine 250 ml-Dose € 3,99. im Supermarkt kostet es normalerweise ~ € 1,29.
🎵Eine Zugfahrt die ist lustig, eine Zugfahrt die ist schön.🎵 Kaum zu fassen, aber der ICE von Hamburg nach Frankfurt am Main am vergangenen Sonntagnachmittag war auf ganzer Strecke pünktlich. 📷
I find it so disappointing that there doesn‘t seem to be a) Google Earth Pro for iOS and b) no other good app for iOS to plan a trip that allows saving in a format like KMZ with meta data.
Does anyone know of a USB-C hub that has 2+ USB-C ports and supports charging? I don‘t need USB-A ports, a card reader or anything else. I cannot find anything like it.
Also das WLAN im Zug ist zwar da aber die Verbindung zum Internet nicht. Selbst meine mobile Datenverbindung ist mehr weg als da. Oh Mann.
Ich sitze im ICE 925 von Hamburg nach Frankfurt am Main und das WLAN im Zug heißt „WIFIonICE“ und ja, ich habe gekichert.
Ok, so these DT Swiss CR1600 wheels that Canyon spec’d on my old and Inflite AL can take a lot more punishment than I would’ve given them credit for. Really amazing value.
Season 8, episode 4 of Game of Thrones was as heart wrenching and foreboding as I expected it to be. I worry for the last two episodes. Holy shit.
Handed in my wheels a couple of days back for truing because the front wheel felt wonky after my last long ride. Turns out the wheels are fine but the front tyre’s mantle might be torn on the inside and needs replacing soon. Ah well, at least the wheel is fine.
It boggles the mind how high the stakes seem to be for this upcoming WWDC. My own needs might be colouring my perception but I think this event will determine whether Apple‘s tablets are going to become (almost) as capable as Windows tablets and more than just companion devices.
I always love when this song comes up in shuffle: No Diggity — Blackstreet, Dr. Dre & Queen Pen
It’s been almost a day since I saw the latest Game of Thrones episode and I might have to rewatch it. What a rollercoaster it was and damn, I loved that decisive moment. So fitting an act by my favourite character.
Spent the last ~ 1.25 hours watching Game of Thrones, season 8 episode 3. It was spectacular TV, heartbreaking, rewarding, and utterly emotionally draining. Holy crap.
Ich möchte jeden freundlich an die Existenz dieses Liedes erinnern: song.link/i/1156098…
Sports in the morning
So here’s a rather disappointing thing I learned about myself recently:
Attempting to do medium to hard cardio efforts cycling or running in the morning with a total calorie expenditure of 1,000+ will leave me tired all day and cause me to have to drink more coffee or strong tea than usual to stay awake and concentrated.
Doing a longer and hard set of high intensity interval training (bodyweight or with weights) between 500 to 1,200 calories will leave me physically exhausted and my muscles burning but awake and refreshed.
I consider this unfortunate because I love cycling in the mornings, setting out right before sunrise and cycling somewhere interesting.
I‘m sure that others have made this connection before me but after so many movies, I just realised that Thor is pretty much a male Sailor Moon with the way his clothes, his hair, and even his beard transforms when he summons Mjölnir/Storm Breaker sometimes.
What a ride. Took a wrong turn in the forest and lost a lot of energy slogging uphill on 2 km of loose gravel the size of my thumb, feeling like I was going to face-plant at any moment. Great vistas and all but I had to take the bus up the last hill back home; I was spent. 📷🚴🏻♂️
Ok, these look interesting specifically for the off road mapping features: bikerumor.com/2019/04/2… Sadly, the Wahoo Elemnt Bolt I’m using is crap for navigation and it’s even worse off road.
Holy shit. The guy that just blew past me on his e-bike must’ve had the limiter removed. Woah. That was fucking quick.
„Schotterradeln Region Trier“ Ich habe eine Meetup-Gruppe gegründet, für Leute die Spaß an Gravel Cycling haben und die Region erkunden wollen. Falls das interessant klingt, einfach hier beitreten: meetu.ps/c/4kq2X/F…
Just fondly remembered the episode of Star Trek: Voyager where Species 8472 built a Starfleet headquarters staging ground to prepare for an invasion of the Federation. I’ll have to rewatch it soon. Good TV.
Oh great! One of the email addresses I use for communication with the tax office and other public institutions has landed in a spam list. I wonder which institution caught a trojan.
I really hope the purported separation of iTunes into Music, Podcast, TV, ??? apps is going to coincide with Apple allowing side-loading of media onto iOS devices. I hate having to fire up the Mac to put a .m4b audiobook into the Books app on my iPhone.
The reports of the quickly breaking Samsung Galaxy Fold screens show that having fewer moving parts on phones is a good thing. It‘ll be a while until folding screen phones are sturdy enough to handle the mechanical stresses of regular use and even then I‘m not sure it‘s worth it.
Ah, the wonders of push notifications: I just received one telling me I had entered and left a parking garage with my membership card. This card is in my car. Which made me to check where my car is. Turns out, the notification should’ve been sent last Thursday. #keepstillmyheart
I miss 4:3 ratio displays in laptops so much. On any laptop that is primarily used for productivity purposes, it’s much more useful than any 16:10 or 16:9 display, unless you’re working on a 15–17” display.
“Jokes Seth Can’t Tell” is my favourite segment on Late Night with Seth Meyers and last week’s instalment is no exception: youtu.be/o5G6e9dBP… Amber Ruffin and Jenny Hagel are amazing.
I might rant sometimes about how the iPhone doesn’t give me as much creative freedom as my cameras but I love how effortless it makes close-up shots in good lighting conditions. It’s quite easy to get a nice, properly focused shot with a usable depth of field. 📷
I made an interesting discovery during my most recent gravel ride: I kept pulling/tensing up my shoulders. It took some mental effort to just let them droop but it had the positive effect of me loosening the grip on my drop bars and without a perceived loss of control.
These views never get old. I took my new bike for its first proper gravel ride yesterday on one of my favourite short routes. I felt like I properly got to know the bike for the first time. 📷🚴🏻♂️
WOO! A set of stickers designed by Daniela Schreiter (Fuchskind on Twitter, @fuchskindsfuchsbau on Instagram) arrived recently and they look really nice. I already found the perfect spot for the “Selfcare-Potion” sticker.
Debating with myself whether I should buy Office 365. There’s a decent offer around that’ll get me a 1-year subscription for € 48.— instead of € 69.— when buying straight from Microsoft. chrm … … … especially on iOS it’s much better than iWork.
I love this face. Sometimes when driving somewhere, I take Bijou into the passenger seat footwell and then she often rests her head like this. #boopthatsnoot 📷🐕
Yellow, green, blue, black. Walked past this on a recent hike, did an almost comical double-take and turned back to take a picture. This feels wallpaper-worthy. 📷
Watching “Serial (Bad) Weddings” and I’m dying laughing. Or maybe it’s the insane amount of vicarious embarrassment but in any case, the movie is immensely enjoyable.
The new bike is finally finished and I’m so happy. The geometry is great, the ride feel even better. Looking forward to many kilometres on it. 📷🚴🏻♂️
Finishing the cherry blossom trifecta with proof that my dog loves me because she tolerated me attempting to take this ridiculous picture of her. 📷🐕
I keep my Apple Photos.app library very clean. Same as my SmugMug account, I treat it not like a catch-all but a curated photo book. A positive effect is that I frequently go through older photos and furthermore the automatically generated retrospectives are very enjoyable.
Almost done with a bottle of Glenfiddich Solera 15. I wasn’t impressed with it. It’s a solid whisky and smooth enough but it also felt a bit too watery and at the same time the flavour profile was unsophisticated. Too bad, I had hoped I’d finally find a Glennfiddich I like.
Whenever I post on Instagram and see the likes and (temporary) follows coming in, I’m reminded how much more real interactions on M.b feel, how the lack of a commercial aspect shapes this place. Also makes me curious what Pixelfed is going to turn into. I have hope.
After seeing @jen_we‘s post yesterday and a weather report forecasting heavy rain and winds, I took my camera with me on the afternoon walk with my dog to capture a few shots of cherry blossoms. I was not disappointed. 📷
The last part I needed to finish this bike rebuild has just arrived. Now I just need to clean the bike from yesterday‘s rather dusty ride and attach it. This new frame really is a beauty and rides so damn well.
I’m sitting here, getting some serious side eye from my dog because I haven’t yet shared a piece of apple with her.
That feeling of disappointment realising that yes, swapping the 46 for a 50-tooth chainring would be very cool, but you just rode 37 km and your current level of fitness didn’t allow you to comfortably sustain a 46-11 gearing for much more than a kilometre on a level road. 🤷🏻♂️🚴🏻♂️
Shimano recommends bedding in new brakes/brake pads as braking efficacy is reduce in the beginning. I expect that yesterday’s ride with 34 kg in tow and a descent of 1.5 km length, trying to keep speed below 15 km/h where I normally ride ~ 65 km/h will have done the trick.
First proper outing with the new(-ish) bike yesterday. It was a good day to ride and I also used the opportunity to let Bijou get more comfortable in the trailer. It was a lot of fun and I came home happy and exhausted. The geometry of the new frame is spot-on. 📷🚴🏻♂️🐕
Started listening to Tiamat’s Wrath yesterday evening. It’s the eighth book of the Expanse and after the first couple of sentences I thought, “I’m home”. This is such an enjoyable series of books.
In my opinion, if you don’t consume Aditi Mittal’s comedy, you’re missing out.
There really, really, really needs to be a way to side-load media into the iOS music app. It’s so damn annoying that I have to fire up my Mac or PC to add something to my iPhone.
Today’s example of German expressions that don’t translate well literally into English:
German: “Das ist echt erste Sahne”
Literally: “This really is first cream.”
Idiomatically correct: “This really is the cream of the crop.”
In a clear sign of how much I forgot about building bicycles, I tried to fit my Rotor crankset, which I previously used on my Canyon Inflite AL in a PressFit BB30 (86 mm) bottom bracket, into a PressFit 30 (68 mm) and completely forgot to buy the necessary spacers. 🤦🏻♂️
I’m still on Instagram and while I try to ignore likes and follows as much as possible, it still confuses me how marketers seem to think that (auto-)liking one of my photos and following me will result in me following back. This whole influencer and brand engagement stuff is BS.
Bottom bracket fitted, brakes filled and bled. What remains is installing the crank and chain and setting up the shifters. With any luck I’ll be able to take the bike out for a spin in a few days. 📷 🚴🏻♂️
Just listened to #TeeVee episode 543 about Star Trek: Discovery S02E09 and when @jsnell said “Let the bodies hit the floor”, I had a vivid imagine of him sitting in his car, banging his head violently while listening to “Bodies” from Drowning Pool.
Just had the bottom bracket fitted, the brake lines attached, and the new brakes properly filled and bled by the nice folks of Fahrrad Heidemann in Trier. So nice of them to have done this on short notice today. I might finish the bike this weekend.
I made some mango-banana-orange smoothies just now and after filling two glasses I had some left. Gave it to Bijou, my dog, and unsurprisingly she loved it. She did seem surprised about the fuzzy feeling it left on her tongue, though.
I’m really looking forward to riding my first bicycle with thru axles soon. Everything about the fit of the wheels feels so much more precise with them.
Current state of the frame swap/bike rebuild. Next steps: 1) take possession of matching red bottom bracket and have it installed, 2) attach brake lines to the new flat mount brakes, 3) install crank and chain, 4) set up and tune shifting. 📷 🚴🏻♂️
The weather is drowsy over here and I kinda want to go back to Labadee with my wonderful colleagues. 📷 🗺
Does anyone know of a good resource to learn about iOS Shortcuts? I’m trying to figure out how to automate certain tasks like backing up photos to a local server from my iPhone. Haven’t been able to find any good info about it.
Sunsets at sea never get old for me. Maybe it’s because I only get the chance to see them once or twice a year. 📷
„Soon.“ This beautiful frame is going to be fitted with most of the components from my current bike and I can hardly wait. 📷 🚴🏻♂️
Reading this kind of thing just makes me sad. It’s not new information to me and I hope that at some point regulators will step in globally:
Los Angeles Times – How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former industry execs tell all
I’m really happy that thanks to the discussions I had here and in real life based on inspiring stories on Micro.blog and Mastodon, I’m blogging more on mangochutney.me again. I might not have everything about my social media setup figured out, yet, but I’m getting there.
I’m working a bit later into Friday night and one of our company Slack channels has yet again turned into a pet photo extravaganza. I love these people so much.
I recon I can make at least one Pomeranian daily with the amount of fur Bijou is shedding right now.
Ich habe eben das erste Mal seit vielen Jahren wieder eine Blaue Holzbiene gesehen und es macht mich sehr froh. Meine Eltern hatten früher eine Kolonie im Garten und sie waren wunderbar anzusehen.
I spent a good portion of Sunday on the couch with Bijou sleeping next to me or on me, the sun warming her face. 📷 🐶
An impression from yesterday’s super relaxed 51 km bike ride. This bike path is called the “Ruwerradweg”, roughly 60 km in total length and a perfect place to cycle, run, and skate. 📷 🚴🏻♂️
Did anyone else watch S02E06 of Star Trek: Discovery and when the Ba’ul is revealed, go “Wait, is that Armus?”
I’m as cautious about storing data on other people’s computers as anyone but when I hear categorical “No Cloud!” exclamations, all I can think of is Edna Mode’s “No Capes!”, except the no capes rule actually makes sense to me.
I sincerely hope there will be no sexual misconduct/assault revelations about John Goodman because I really enjoy his acting. Watching “Black Earth Rising” on Netflix right now. 📺
Somehow, after all these years, it’s still astounding to me to see Samsung copy Apple’s designs so blatantly.
Hey @Aleen if you’re still in need of cute animal pictures, this is for you.
Donnerstag, 14.02.2019, 09:48 Uhr
Aussicht vom Trierer Knutschpunkt über die Trierer Innenstadt. #nebel #wasnesuppe 📷
For the record: Bijou, my dog, hates going running with me and it’s not that she can’t or won’t run. It’s funny because she was ecstatic to go out despite me wearing my running stuff, which usually causes her to hide. Apparently she was thrown off by the new running shoes.
Ich buche nach Jahren mal wieder eine lange Fahrt mit der Deutschen Bahn und stelle direkt wieder fest, wieso ich es hasse diesem Konzern Geld zu geben.
While consolidating data on a new HDD, I noticed something about my photo backups: the folder for 2018 is smaller than the ones for 2017 and 2016, despite me having traveled more. Hopefully this means I’m becoming more sure of my shooting and more selective about what I keep.
I enjoyed S02E04 of Star Trek: Discovery so much. It felt like every geeky, science-y episode of TNG but with a modern twist and even more humour and heart.
One thing I realised having had to work from an iPad for the past few days, is how much more I enjoy the 4:3 aspect ratio for everything but movie watching.
I can’t say enough good things about Carrot Weather. The personality is one thing but the customisation options make it so very useful.
I hate jetlag so much. My mind is already back and thirsting for action but my body is of the opinion that 11 solid hours of sleep are really just a drop in the bucket.
Seriously MIA, Do you have to test your “exciting new boarding process” using facial recognition with a full passenger contingent for an A380 before an 11 hour flight? Really? Who thought that up?
I can’t say enough good things about the Fujifilm XF90mmF2 R LM WR. It focuses quickly and is absolutely tack-sharp even wide open.
I don’t know, I feel like steppers that simulate real stairs are redundant on a cruise ship with 13 decks worth of stairs to climb.
Holy wow, there are about to be a lot of families with small children on this flight. Good luck, parents.
Having amazingly tasty wraps with chickpeas, vegetables, and a sauce based on tahini.
Anyone curious about really good vegan dishes needs to check out “Thug Kitchen”. It’s my favourite cook book, even beating Action Bronson’s “Fuck That’s Delicious”.
People, if you’re not listening to thebuglepodcast.com you’re missing out.
One of my takeaways from Star Trek Discovery S02E01 is: Don’t mansplain to the test pilot of the high velocity space craft while you’re flying said space craft for the first time in a high risk environment.
Oh my! I totally missed that the second season of Star Trek Discovery has started to air. Thankfully The Incomparable/TeeVee podcast showing up in Castro reminded me of it. Curious episode to start the season with.
Made these pancakes for breakfast and WOW they were delicious. The recipe will be permanently added to my pancake repertoire.
German: www.buzzfeed.com/de/hector…
English: www.buzzfeed.com/hectorgom…
“Hike me.”, is what this beautifully lit forest path says to me. I went by there recently, walking a different hiking path and when whenever I scroll past this picture I want to grab my bike and explore this forest. (Side note: I’m getting better at editing high-contrast forest scenes to me liking.)
I won a @wildernesstrailbikes contest earlier this year and one of the prizes was a pair of @quocshoes Gran Tourer shoes. They arrived recently and what was supposed to be a quick shopping ride to check them out turned into a proper water resistance test because I had to ride 7 km in pouring rain back home. My feet stayed dry and I was impressed.
Just finished “Lethal White” by Robert Galbraith, a.k.a. JK Rowling. Very good book and quite a bit different than the last three. Enjoyed every moment reading/listening to it.
Well, that settles it then. The Campfire Audio Andromeda are a worthy successor to my broken Westone UM3X. I’m sitting in a public space, listening to rock and I didn’t realise I was headbanging because I’m so engaged in the music.
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to shoot a couple of pictures while a beekeeping friend took care of a few of their hives. Fascinating animals. This is my favourite shot out of the session.
She looks so much like an overgrown bunny sometimes and it’s incredibly cute when all feet are right next to each other.
Signs of an incredibly fun afternoon clear-my-head ride. It was very muddy, the ground quite loose on already wet leaves in the forest and yet I didn’t face-plant once (YAY!). I simply love coming home with the bike looking like this.
So glad I didn’t throw away my 15" Incase Nylon laptop bag when I moved to 13" machines years ago. I typically carry my 15" MBP in a backpack but recently I found that I need a laptop bag again and remembered that old thing.
Starting to fall in love with the Campfire Audio Andromeda. The bass is so well controlled and extends so deep without ever overpowering the other frequencies.
I just love hiking in autumn. The colours, the way the light falls through the trees and their multicoloured leaves. Such a lovely season.
Not that I don’t like the sound quality AirPods are capable of in quiet places but I’m really glad to have proper IEMs again. A couple of months since my Westone UM3X RC finally stopped working properly and after a some days of research I bought the Campfire Audio Andromeda.
For reasons I don’t quite understand, I’ve just been wondering where Elsa would fall on the X-Men power scale.
Beautiful but exhausting ride on Friday. I expected the last of the four climbs to do me in but it turned out that the 8 km along the Mosel with a strong headwind were what prevented me from finishing the route I had set for myself.
This gal crumpled the blanket so she could comfortably rest her head and took the time to hide her nose under her leg just right. She is absolutely adorable.
Similar route as a few days ago but with even more gravel-y goodness. Wasn’t any easier, though. Finished it off with a nice, cold beer.
Yesterday’s ride was also a “new kit day” ride. I had installed the @wolf_tooth_comp RoadLink DM to improve shifting of my recently installed @rideshimano RD-RX800 and 11–40 XT cassette. Mind you, shifting works fine with this combination alone but it’s not as smooth as I would’ve hoped. I’m not sure if the amount of B-screw tension I had to apply to make the derailleur clear the 40-tooth cog is a factor here. Anyway, the RoadLink DM really helped. Shifting performance is now on the level of my old RD-R8000 and 11–30 cassette combination.
Monday’s ride. It was really beautiful and I was very glad I found this route online because the amount of streets and paved roads was minimal. I’ll try and optimise it a bit today.
Season 4 episode 20 of Clone Wars: Asajj Ventress’s reaction unwanted and violent advances in the bar seems appropriate and measured.
Watching the second third of season four of Clone Wars and I’m seeing some of the genius that made Rebels so compelling.
An impression from last Saturday’s hike. Mist in the air and harsh morning light can make for an amazing combination, add autumn colours into that mix and I could’ve just stood there and watched.
Went for my first longer ride after the holiday and the cold and it felt great to be on the bike again. It was also the first outing with the new 11–40 cassette and it made a huge difference going up steep and loose forest roads compared to the old 11-30 cassette.
I might not like James Dyson very much (because of his stance on Brexit, mostly) but I admire how much thought went into the design of the V6 vacuum. I disassembled mine today to give it a thorough cleaning and it was a breeze.
Small change that will hopefully make a big difference in riding. I replaced the 100 mm stem—that I had already flipped up—with a 80 mm stem to reduce the overall reach. I hope it’ll help because I’ve recently noticed myself moving back from the hoods on longer flat stretches.
This is consistently one of my favourite segments on Late Night with Seth Meyers.
ERMAHGERD, shut up and take my money, Zeiss
I’m curious about the details but what is known about this camera sounds so right, down to the fact that it uses DNG for RAW files like Leicas.
At this point I’m certain that Mika (our smaller dog) is running some sort of cat software on her dog OS. She does things like a cat so often and it never ceases to amuse me.
Now that I’m back from my holiday in Scotland, I’m looking forward to cycling more than before and the first step towards this was ordering a new stem for my CX bike to improve the fit. On longer rides I noticed that I would instinctively move back from the hoods about 2 cm.
We’re staying in the “MPW” room in the Duke William and in my mind that’s an abbreviation for “Moste Powerful Wizard”.
About to have dinner at the Duke William in Ickham. Getting excited about the food because the smells wafting over from the neighbouring tables carry the promise of tastiness. I’m already equipped with a local ale. 🍺
I bet that in a drunken state one might confuse the main entrance of St. John’s College in Cambridge with Castle Greyskull.
Decided to go for a hike in the Lake District starting from Grasmere. There are SO MANY PEOPLE HERE. WHAT’S HAPPENING??? After the Highlands this feels like way too many people in one place.
Left Scotland today and arrived in the Lake District in northwest England. We’re set up in a beautiful little BnB and had amazing food in the local pub.
We visited Shin Falls today and I saw salmon swimming upstream, up waterfalls live for he first time in my life. Such a beautiful spectacle.
Scotland trip, day 4/21. Spent a good couple of hours enjoying the Three-Loch-Forest walk, had coffee in style and got our first taste of the highlands driving through Glencoe.
Scotland trip, day 3/21. Rosslyn Chapel is impressive and one could probably spend days there marvelling at the intricate stone work. Edinburgh was beautiful to walk around but I was kind of disappointed how few restaurants allowed dogs inside. Had my first contact with #irnbru and we bought amazing #fudge.
We’re in a part of Scotland right now that looks exactly like my home region in Germany, the Eifel, and it confuses the hell out of me. There are small differences like the dry stone walls that separate lands and plots but still.
Traveling is taking a lot out of our dogs and they’re using every opportunity to sleep. Entering the car means getting comfortable falling asleep within minutes. They are enjoying themselves immensely, though. The small dog was positively ecstatic on the Ilse of Staffa.
Scotland trip, day 2/21. Visited the Hadrian’s Wall, the waterfall at Grey Mare’s Tail (yes, it was nippy), and ended the day with very good food at our hotel (The Park in Peebles). I’m already in love with the landscape.
Scotland trip, day 1/21. Took the ferry from Amsterdam to Newcastle Upon Tyne and I liked that the dogs were with us in the cabin and didn’t have to stay in a cage or in the car. They still weren’t thrilled.
Done and done. (I really like these playful little speciality badges, even if many of the events are U.S. focused.)
It baffles me how wrong the Instagram ad algorithms continue to be, even after I trained them and consistently tag my pictures with relevant keywords.
I’m still kind of worried about the fact that my 44 km/1,100 m ascent gravel ride on Sunday hasn’t caused any muscle soreness so far. It was really hard and my muscles hurt a bit during and after but I don’t have any of the movement impediments I usually experience.
When you’re trying to capture a beautiful forest scene with water, shadows and light but your dog just sees a water bowl. ⛲️🐶
Yesterday’s ride. The weather was perfect but I didn’t choose a good route. It was full of sections that I wouldn’t ride with a MTB. Pushed my bike about 8 km. Still; made it 😅
Going to jump on the bike again tomorrow for a longer ride. It’s been a while and I’m looking forward to it a lot.
I need to stop typing English when my German iOS keyboard is active. It keeps changing words that I typed correctly because it thinks I meant something else. Drives me nuts.
Came across this beautiful wasps’ nest towards the end of last week’s hike. It was having on the side of a old barn surrounded by ivy. It took me a minute but I managed to snag a picture of a wasp leaving the nest.
A dog and her shadow. — — — (Note: the only reason she stood still enough for me to properly compose this shot, was because I held a banana in my left hand and Bijou loves bananas.)
Huh, that Nikon mirrorless isn’t as ugly as I thought it would be. I hope Nikon didn’t cut any corners and that we’ll see some competition for Sony. www.nikoneye.com/nokishita…
The really juicy part about the new Zeiss/Sony camera rumour is that is might have a lens with ALON elements.
„What are ALON elements, my precious?“
— Well, it’s transparent aluminium and I’m just sitting here, trekkie that I am, thinking, “be still my heart“. 🖖
This rumour/teaser of a new Sony/Zeiss compact camera has me excited. I’m shooting with a Fujifilm X-Pro2 but I’ve been eyeing the SONY RX1RM2 for a while because I just love the 35mm focal length and could live with a fixed focal length camera for this. Hoping this will be good.
Just disabled cross-posting from mastodon again. I don’t like how media is handled (or rather not handled) and the fact that not all profile links work well. I’d rather have the option to cross-post from micro.blog to mastodon.
Light, shadow, moss, water. We were treated to amazing weather on Saturday and the hiking route my partner picked was perfect because it protected us from the heat most of the time. It also gave me plenty opportunity to take pictures of high contrast scenes.
This was the picture, @macgenie
Nope, looks like my IEMs are broken. 7 years, that’s how long they lasted and the right earpiece still works just fine but the left one is much quieter. Dang.
Any recommendations? I’m coming from a pair of Westone UM3X RC and liked the sound signature.
Shit. Crap. Argh. Either my Westone UM3X RC are finally starting to go, or the replacement cable is defective, or my left ear has an issue. The left side is significantly quieter than the right one.
I might soon have to shell out some money for decent in-ears.
Mondo del Caffè has completely spoilt me for pretty much any other coffee shop or coffee roaster. Damn you! shakes fist You’ve made me a coffee snob.
Walked into my favourite restaurant/work space, sat down in my usual spot, head waiter acknowledged me, named my usual drink, got a thumbs-up, and I had it in a minute. Love it.
I’m so grateful for this dog. We adopted her from our local shelter about three years ago and it’s been nothing but great.
One feature I really want to see in iOS, is the ability replace the default camera app with something like @halidecamera, making it accessible from the home screen.
I like Pu‘er tea a lot but I find it disconcerting that the scents wafting over from a horse ranch remind me so much of it.
Coffee at home is still the best. I keep ending up disappointed trying to find coffee in cafés and restaurants that is as good as the stuff I prepare at home. It’s really all about the quality of the coffee itself.
Summer morning walk after a night of rain. It was so nice to see the thermometer below 26°C at 0800 for a change.
Toronto work trip food roundup. One of the things I love about metropolitan cities is the sheer choice of amazing food places: 1. tuna steak @thekegtoronto, 2. bao buns @momofukutoronto, 3. The Big Vic burger and fries at Victor Restaurant @legermainhotels, 4. lemon pie at Victor Restaurant, 5. Tuna Tango sushi burrito @suandbu 106 John Street, 6. hot dog slider and pizza at Sightlines Restaurant at the Rogers Centre (the food there wasn’t particularly good but it was my first baseball game experience and that counts for something).
I like that if you look closely enough, you can find really good factual information on YouTube that doesn’t shy away from acknowledging the complexity of an issue and guides the viewer towards making an informed decision on their own.
I’ve been working for a Canadian company from Toronto for almost five years now and I deal with lots of people from different time zones but the AM/PM model still confuses me. 24h time format FTW!
Went out for some really good dumplings and buns with friends before my flight back to Germany. I had been looking forward to eating at Mother’s Dumplings for the entire week. Thanks for taking the time, Betty, @chrisrmeek, @ssoroka78.
Given how full this flight is, I consider having found room in the overhead bin above my seat a win. (So glad I’m traveling with very little luggage.)
They’re still working on the engine and aren’t sure if the new departure time will be made. Already going to be late three hours. Ah well #atleasttheressnacks
Having your flight delayed because of engine problems sucks. I know. It’s happening to me, too, right now. But booing the gate staff because of it is utterly stupid, entitled white dude.
Off to Toronto tomorrow for a work week. Only bringing one lens with me, the XF23mmF1.4 R. Should be fun.
Sunday ride. It was hot, the first half was much harder than expected, and I had a flat. That beer before the last third was necessary.
Great! Barely 7 km into my bike ride this morning and I have a flat front tyre because some idiot smashed a bottle on the road.
In regards to the broken but repairable Senseo coffee machine; it still sucks not being able to easily make one cup of coffee right now. Just not in the mood to make some using the EsproPress this morning.
One of the advantages of Philips Senseo machines being so prevalent for the past 15 years, is the fact that you can still easily get spare parts years later.
Trying to buy new hiking shoes and it’s a pain. I don’t even have crooked feet or anything (lucky me) but I want something wider and while that’s easy enough to find, getting a really comfortable pair is hard.
This forest trail is just asking to be ridden. Can’t wait to jump on my bike again. I’ve been using my weekly hikes to scout new tracks to ride with my bike and I found so many nice places already.
I continue to enjoy the images the iPhone 7’s sensor is capable of capturing in a) the right circumstances and b) when shooting RAW and editing to one’s liking. I’ve been frustrated with the output of the iOS JPEG engine and the lack of dynamic range the images had, typically shooting with a Fujifilm X-Pro2 and some really good glass. For me, the ability to capture DNG on the iPhone has legitimised it as a capable camera again, beyond something for basic snapshots.
That was exhausting. Went for a long ride in my childhood/youth stomping grounds in #Mainz and the surrounding area, riding along the Rhine for a good 15 km. Even made a quick pitstop at my old grammar school. Amazing weather and more gravel roads than I remembered there being.
Bijou, in my girlfriend’s jean jacket, looking at the sunset. She lost so much fur this season and it was very windy on that hill, so we decided to put a jacket on her. I didn’t expect to get this kind of picture out of it. (Shot with the Fujifilm XF23mmF1.4 R, by the way. The link to my small review is still in my bio.)
I wrote a small article about my favourite lens, the utterly boring XF23mmF1.4 R on my site: www.mangochutney.me/the-xf23-… (link in my bio). #fujifilm_xseries #xpro2 #xf23mmf14 /cc @fujifilm.digital.de @fujifilmeu @fujifeed @x100p @mirrorlessgeeks #gearporn #boringlens #photographygear
Couldn’t let this World Bicycle Day pass without going for a ride. Came home late, exhausted, and happy.
Amazing National Geographic cover
Tolles Cover für ein ernsthaftes Umweltproblem. Chapeau @NatGeo 👏👏👏 pic.twitter.com/FPe2RGjtoK
— Christoph Fröhlich (@cfroeh) May 17, 2018
I wholeheartedly agree with this assessment
A pangolin is just a sloth who has reached level 10 as a Paladin, and I won't be convinced otherwise. pic.twitter.com/Qp4BZgtvuh
— Bryan Camp (@bryancamp) March 25, 2018
Yup, looking forward to this a lot
Real heroes. Not actual size. Watch the brand new trailer for Marvel Studios' "Ant-Man and The Wasp," in theaters July 6! #AntManandtheWasp pic.twitter.com/ZNhZtVmOIr
— Ant-Man (@AntMan) May 1, 2018
Ich warte noch drauf, CDU… na?
Mädchen bis 14 Jahren sollen kein Kopftuch tragen dürfen, weil sie zu jung sind, um "selbst zu entscheiden".
— Caroline (@keyflake) April 9, 2018
Starker Vorstoß von der Christlich Demokratischen Union. Es kann also nur noch eine Frage der Zeit sein, bis Säuglinge nicht mehr getauft werden dürfen.
Fox News: right-wing, racist state propaganda
Everything wrong with Fox News in one video pic.twitter.com/MhnApiQ3pG
— NowThis Impact (@nowthisimpact) March 16, 2018
Makes sense that he'd do it on the main bridge
@RikerGoogling pic.twitter.com/67Z8cDcjoA
— Steve McCabe (@smccabe83) March 2, 2018
Taking advantage of some down time on the bridge #rikergoogling #spock #livelongandprosper #startrek #averagedayactionfigures #actionfigures #90s #google #toys #toystargram pic.twitter.com/rvhctAZWKa
— Steve McCabe (@smccabe83) March 2, 2018
Two saddening and accurate comics after Charlottesville
Please share my #Charlottesville toon. Thx! @GottaLaff @co_rapunzel4 @MaggieJordanACN @laloalcaraz @reddroostermann @JuddApatow @GeorgeTakei pic.twitter.com/ur5L227lP4
— Ed Hall (@halltoons) August 13, 2017
The White (Supremacist) House - Latest @guardian cartoon...#Charlottesville #Trump pic.twitter.com/ZNGCynzyRQ
— Ben Jennings (@BJennings90) August 13, 2017
It's finally happening again: a new Star Trek TV series!
For those of you outside the US, this version should be available. :) https://t.co/PxXmui65RO
— Holly Amos (@hollyamos22) May 17, 2017
200 days and counting
I reached my daily move goal for 200 days in a row. #AppleWatch pic.twitter.com/ePufLxpdm4
— 🐘 @mangochutney@micro.blog (@mangochutney) April 5, 2017
Cards Against Humanity: Aisha Tyler, Laina Morris, & Ali Spagnola join Wil Wheaton (NSFW, seriously.)
Climate change deniers trying to silence scientists exposing their stupidity by threatening legal actions — Why am I not surprised?
Cable organisation for the female neat freak and the male neat freak who's comfortable with his sexuality (and everybody else, too)
This is ridiculous
The Verge’s Tom Warren:
A company spokesperson has confirmed to The Verge that the 64GB edition of Surface Pro will have 23GB of free storage out of the box.
“Pro.”
On John Moltz’s Very Nice Website
I want Microsoft to succeed with their Surface tablets. Badly.But this is not how to market a new flagship device.
Belkin doesn't plan on selling many Thunderbolt Express Docks
Andrew Kunesh at Macgasm:Belkin has just dropped eSATA support as well as the price tag of its Thunderbolt Express Dock. The price has been dropped back down to its original price of $299. Belkin’s Thunderbolt Express Dock was quietly introduced in September of 2011 and made an official debut as a prototype at CES 2012. However, in June of last year, the device was changed a bit and had its price raised by $100. Fortunately, Belkin has just announced that it will be bringing the price of the device down by dropping eSATA support.The ‘temporary’ price point of $ 399,– was absolutely ludicrous, but the old/new one isn’t significantly less stupid.Sure, Thunderbolt is still a niche interface and will continue to be as long as manufacturers don’t decide to release more products for it — oh, and drop the price for cables to a sensible level. As of now it’s pretty much a technology for professionals.So, with the current range of Apple computers in mind, what’s the target group for this device?Macbook Pro users get at least one Thunderbolt port, two USB3.0 ports, an audio output and some kind of digital video output for their money.Mac mini and iMac users get tons of ports on their computers, too.What remains are MacBook Air buyers who for some reason need more than two USB3.0 ports at the best possible transfer rates (meaning that a decent USB3.0 hub somehow isn’t good enough) and FireWire 800 and an Ethernet jack and audio ports (I’m interested to know how these audio ports compare to even the cheapest USB audio card).Belkin is making a mistake, because even professionals will think twice before buying an accessory this expensive, when the computers able to leverage the power of the Thunderbolt Express Dock are usually a) pretty expensive from the get-go and b) mostly feature a decent range of useful and fast ports by default.Continuing this train of thought, you have to consider that Apple offers the Thunderbolt Display for $ 999,–. The latter is not only a decent display for the price (compared to displays with similar specifications), but it’s next iteration will most likely have USB3.0 as well. Now imagine a user who plans to buy a good display and also wants to leverage the benefits of the Thunderbolt port on his or her machine. The price difference between a good display + the Thunderbolt Express Dock, versus the Thunderbolt Display isn’t very big.The niche for the Thunderbolt Express Dock is tiny and becomes only a bit bigger if you include older machines (like the 2011 Mac mini I’m writing this on). For those it constitutes an upgrade of sorts. The benefits from my perspective would be the additional FireWIre 800 port and, most importantly, three fast USB3.0 ports. Still, it’s hellishly expensive and costs about a third of what I paid for my top tier 2011 Mac mini.I’m really curious about the cost of production per unit; it would give a hint as to whether Belkin can’t price this thing lower, or if they don’t want to — the latter of which would be perfectly fine, stupid, but fine.If I had to price this device for the consumer (or even the prosumer), I wouldn’t cross the $ 199,– mark if I could help it.
I'm just going to leave this here
Here it is: http://t.co/5rupu21Y
— Joel Housman (@joelhousman) August 15, 2012
Go to that link on an iPhone or iPad. Open in Safari.
Be amazed.
NASA is fucking awesome.
Mine is bigger! — Apple's new MacBook Pro with Retina Display
This machine is a gigantic, high resolution, unibody middle finger to PC makers.
Great OS X Lion Mail tip at Finer Things in TechIf your main email client is the standard OS X Lion Mail application, then this tip is something for you, especially if you don’t need or want the list of folders to be visible all the time.Head over to David Chartier’s site and check it out, the link is in the post title.
Nadyne Richmond on sexism in computer science
"this is the trouble that women cause and I therefore try to avoid hiring them" http://t.co/gmUtDaLm
— Nadyne Richmond (@nadyne) May 4, 2012
The stuff of childhood dreams
APOD: 2012 April 18 - The Flight Deck of Space Shuttle Endeavour:Explanation: What would it be like to fly a space shuttle? Although the last of NASA’s space shuttles has now been retired, it is still fun to contemplate sitting at the controls of one of the humanity’s most sophisticated machines. Pictured above is the flight deck of Space Shuttle Endeavour, the youngest shuttle and the second to last ever launched. The numerous panels and displays allowed the computer-controlled orbiter to enter the top of Earth’s atmosphere at greater than the speed of sound and – just thirty minutes later – land on a runway like an airplane. The retired space shuttles are now being sent to museums, with Endeavour being sent to California Space Center in Los Angeles, California, Atlantis to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex on Merritt Island, Florida, and Discovery to the Udvar-Hazy Annex of the National Air and Space Museum in Chantilly, Virginia. Therefore sitting in a shuttle pilot’s chair and personally contemplating the thrill of human space flight may actually be in your future.
This totally doesn't look like the same thing, right?
Sebastiaan de With:Samsung Galaxy S III (announced today) on the right, iPhone 4S (2011) on the left.What’s even more laughable is that the Samsung Galaxy S III is still struggling with camera and screen technology, using subpar optics and the abhorrent AMOLED technology with PenTile subpixel arrangement.But at least they’re innovating on new software features, right?
This is why carriers will continue to prefer Anroid based phones
Interesting datum: Google keeps 5% of Android (aka Play) app sales. Developers get 70%. Operators get 25%.
— Horace Dediu (@asymco) May 6, 2012
A very thorough list of .osx system preferencesUseful if you’re looking for some terminal command, but can’t remember what it was.
Podcast recommendation: inThirty Episode 3: SkyBoxDriveSyncCloudDrop
If you’re trying to figure out which online storage service is for you, I urge you to listen to this episode of “inThirty”. The hosts succinctly cover the most popular ones, giving a great overview of what you get.
My take on splash screens in iOS games
Another article I wrote for macgasm.net
Review: Remarks by ReaddleReaddle recently updated its new note taking app Remarks. I took a look at it for macgasm.net
The 3rd generation iPad — implications for gamers and game console producersI wrote a short post on the topic over at macgasm, check it out.
The state of Apple’s platform lock-inI’ve written a piece for macgasm, outlining the current state of Apple’s ecosystem regarding platform lock-in.
How to make Twitter’s favourites more usefulSomething I wrote for macgasm.net, that’s been bugging me for a while. The solution works nicely, I recommend checking it out.
Facebook Timeline Privacy Tips
This site gives an overview of the things you can do to protect your privacy and tweak the way your new MySpace Facebook timeline works.
Post-PC era, indeed – Wind on a LeafDavid Chartier recounting a story that happened during a recent Christmas dinner with his larger family. It describes the way a high school student interacts and productively uses her iPad in school.
What the Original iPhone Teaches About a 4G-Equipped iPhone — 512 PixelsGreat article by Stephen Hackett on why Apple would be stupid to put 4G chipsets into iPhones anytime soon.
You need to watch this, now: The first trailer for the HobbitSeriously, it’s awesome and I want it to be next December already.
Doug Drexler on the building of the Bajoran Interceptor BridgeA few great photos and some commentary on one of the important spots from one of my favourite DS9 episodes.
Sasha Grey on educationPlease follow the link to Jonas Wisser’s blog.He posted a quote from Sasha Grey, regarding demands she should stop reading to children.Wisser’s commentary is equally insightful.
CrunchFund? No Matter What You Call It, It’s Business as Usual in SV. - Kara Swisher - Media - AllThingsDGo ahead and read Kara Swisher’s article, here’s the tl;dr version: Mike Arrington is an amoral douchbag.
→ A Strange Sort of Prison, a Strange Sort of FreedomHarry McCracken on some pundits’s feelings towards the prison that is using Apple’s products.
Red Sweater Blog – Open Source ObligationsThe problems that result from a false sense of entitlement. I don’t want to give people the “holier than thou” feeling, but my opinion is that when someone gives the fruit of their labour away for free, the things you say to them should consist of constructive criticism and lots of ‘Thank you!’s, nothing more.
On Nokia’s Windows PhonesI share Harry Marks’s sentiment towards Nokia’s Windows Phone 7 phones. I sincerely hope they succeed and are able to make a dent in the market.
Richard Stallman is pretty much insane
Richard Stallman is pretty much insaneThis might be beating a dead horse, but it’s just too much fun. Ignoring the good the man did and the things he gave us, I’m going to go on the record here by saying that he’s a crazy, asocial and self-centered arse.
Jim Dalrymple’s review of the new iPhone 4SGreat and to-the-point review of the new iPhone 4S, showcasing nicely how the improvements over the iPhone 4 will affect everyday usage.
David Chartier: Apple's fall from grace - BGR
David Chartier: Apple’s fall from grace - BGRchartier:
The Topolsky Spin — The Angry DrunkAnother handy law to invoke when discussing tech news and articles written by New Media Douchebags and wannabe pundits.
This was pretty much my initial reaction after the Event yesterday, just check the post below this one.
“I never use anyone else’s products. I never do a competitive matrix, ever. My entire life, I’ve never done it. I could care less what other people make. I have no interest whatsoever. I mean, I literally don’t think there’s anything to be learned by other people’s stuff.”
— Color founder Bill Nguyen, Humbled, Color’s Bill Nguyen Friends Facebook | Fast Company
That explains so, so, so much about why Color was a
dizzying, runaway, spectacular successastounding failure straight out of the gate. (via chartier)
This is an amazingly stupid attitude for someone trying to enter one of today’s most competitive markets. My only question now is: How did this guy manage to revceive funding?
TUAW: Conan O’Brien parodies iPhone 5 “loss”The bad thing is, this is what devoted Andorid fans, or people who simply hate Apple, probably imagine the imagined “Apple Police” to be.
Great tear down by Craig Grannell of Timothy B. Lee’s nearsighted Forbes piece, “Why Google is Winning the Smartphone Wars”
Here’s the deal - the “smartphone wars” have been imagined by pundits and analysts for a variety of reasons, including linkbaiting, stock manipulation and incompetence.
We have never been at war with Eastgoogle.
Great short post by Harry Marks with a link to an equally great post.
I couldn’t be happier to see Future publishing take down this vile parasite.Anybody who followed the case of Mobigame vs. Langdell will agree with this.It’s really worth a read.
No one is safe – How the editor of Windows magazine became an Apple fanboy
I don’t usually link to Cult of Mac, but this article merits an exception. Mike Elgan, former editor of the Windows Magazine realises that he has —slowly but steadily— become an Apple fanboy.
Craig Hockenberry: The Rise and Fall of the Independent Developer
In this blog post Craig Hockenberry comments on the latest developments in the software licensing and patent business.
Harry Potter is all about confronting fears, finding inner strength, and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend.
— Stephen King
Computer Scientists Create ‘light Field Camera’ Banishing Fuzzy PhotosIf you’re interested in photography at all, this ‘new’ technology should have you excited.It’s really promising technology which might completely change the way we take pictures.
And there I was actually considering these
And there I was actually considering thesePrompted by Marco Arment’s review of the Sennheiser PX200-IIi I decided to start looking for iPhone compatible headphones again.
Glenn Fleishman: Malware episode puts Mac users on notice
This article neatly sums-up the “MacDefender situation”: The best protection against malware and viruses is education and common sense, in that order. The better users are educated about what their computer does and how, the better they are able to identify scams.
The Future of NetNewsWire: An Interview With Brent Simmons and Black Pixel’s Daniel Pasco
I greatly admire Brent Simmons and his work. NetNewsWire has been my goto RSS reader since I switched to the Mac a little over three years ago.
Even though Reeder has replace NetNewsWire for me on the Mac, iPhone and iPad, I still have paid licences for each version of NNW; they’re my backup solution.
Andy Ihnatko: Things you can do to make your website unusable
I recently wrote a paper on sensory overload and advertising effectiveness on Chinese websites. I wish Mr. Ihnatko had written this earlier; the article would’ve provided me with a lot of great quotes.
Doctors and dentists tell patients, “all your review are belong to us” (Week in tech: civilizing the Internet edition)
Daring Fireball Linked List: Android Market’s New Movie Rental Service Blocked From Rooted DevicesAnother episode of “Google vs. Open”, or “Google != Open”.
Every ‘Mac vs. PC’ Ad in chronological order
Adweek has put together a blog post, showing each and every one of Apple’s “Mac vs. PC” ads in chronological order. via TUAW
Four Months After Approving NBC Buyout, FCC Commissioner Becomes Comcast Lobbyist
Despicable. But the worst thing about this is, I can’t say I’m surprised.
On fragmentation, Google still comes up short against Apple (Google vs. Apple on fragmentation)(via Instapaper)
Neven Mrgan’s tumbl: What folder is that app in?Great idea by Neven Mrgan in how to improve Spotlight on iOS devices.
Daring Fireball: Wolf!Debunking FUD one year at a time, without writing more than one word yourself. Impressive.
Great discussion between Jim Dalrymple and one of his friends.
Be sure to check out the comments, there are some great arguments being made down there.
Review: iPad 2 is not revolutionary, but it is great - Chicago Sun-Times
Review: iPad 2 is not revolutionary, but it is great - Chicago Sun-Times
“It’s offensive” vs. “I’m offended”. This is something people need to get into their noggins.
heise online - VGA-Buchse zum Aussterben verurteilt
Hat ja auch lange genug gedauert was VGA angeht.
heise online - Rückgaberecht im Versandhandel: Ausprobieren ohne Wertersatz
Die Implikationen für Händler verstehend, freue ich mich trotzdem über dieses Urteil.
Vodafone veröffentlicht Preise für das iPhone 4
Es ist schön zu sehen, dass meine Vermutungen bestätigt wurden und Vodafone genauso begriffsstutzig ist wie die Telekom auch. Die beiden größten Mobilfunkanbieter in Deutschland sind auch die am wenigsten innovativen.
Die Sueddeutsche ignoriert Kritik genauso sehr wie Apple
Die Sueddeutsche ignoriert Kritik genauso sehr wie AppleIn diesem Artikel wird eindrucksvoll dargestellt, dass die Redakteure der Süddeutschen weder technisches Verständnis besitzen, noch den Willen, die Inhalte einer Pressekonferenz von Apple korrekt wiederzugeben, solange es die Besucherzahlen der Seite hoch hält. Einige Beispiele im einzelnen: