2026-05-28

Cold, Cold Nights Under Chrome and Glass

Last week I went to see The Black Queen. This was my first time seeing them perform since 2016, when they were touring Fever Daydream. I had no idea that Danny Lohner had joined the band for this tour until he walked out on stage. At the end of the set I yelled at him to release the Tapeworm tapes, you coward.

So if that ever happens, you’re welcome.

Holy Water opened that night. I’d never heard him before, but he was great. He reminds me of VNV Nation. I went home and bought his album, which I did not like as much. He’s much better live. He also seems like a swell guy.

This week I went to the Male Tears show. I had never heard of them before. They’re alright, I guess. Not really my jam. I went because the opener was Sleek Teeth, who very much is my jam.

I first heard them last Halloween at Substance Fest. They became my favorite new-to-me band, and my third favorite of the festival overall (after Sacred Skin and Pixel Grip). Their EP is only five tracks, but all of them are bangers. When I listen to it I just loop it to make it seem longer – seven months of that, and I haven’t gotten sick of it yet. I like to listen to Operating when I’m operating operationally.

They played some new tunes, so I look forward to a full album and more shows. But I will also accept more shows of the same music. Repeatedly.

2026-05-27

physical training

Concerning Harambe Handles

I bought a pair of Harambe Handles back in January. In the subsequent five months my use of them has been more limited than I expected.

I regularly use them for split squats. This requires that I stack the Travel Plate on top of the CyberPlate in order to get tension in the lower part of the movement. I perform these like ATG Split Squats, though because my front foot is elevated on the stacked plates, the exercise is fairly different from what I’d consider a “normal” ATG Split Squat. (I try to do normal ATG Split Squats, without any weights or bands, every other day or so. I consider this part of my prana-bindu training, rather than strength training.)

I also use the handles regularly for the standing lateral fly. It used to be that deadlifts where the first exercise on my pull days, but I try to do a set or two of these first now. Between my stretching and this I am able to warm up a bit better before hitting the deadlift, which is the heaviest exercise I do.

Occasionally I will use handles for a rear delt fly, though this is less frequent. Sometimes I use them for a floor press, but I prefer a bar over handles here.

So the handles give me two regular exercises, and two less frequent. I’ve tried other movements with handles, but nothing has stuck. The handles are as well made and pretty to look at as the rest of the Harambe system, and I’m happy to have them, but they’re not a must-have accessory.

2026-05-10

links

Link Log 2026-05-10

Default mode network

Japanese Woodblock Print Search

I don’t want a screenshot of your Claude conversation

Cultural Topography: A New Research Tool for Intelligence Analysis

Apocalypse Early Warning System

Glory Box (Brass Against, 2025)

2026-05-09

gear, edc

Zebra Magnetics

As mentioned previously, two years ago I bought a ZebraLight H600c Mk IV headlamp. When I was ordering the light, The Internet also suggested that I buy magnets for it. Reader, I did.

From K&J Magnetics I bought the D82-N52. This is a 1/2” x 1/8” N52 neodymium disc magnet. It can be slid inside the spring of the tail cap. It does not interfere with the function of the cap. The flat top 18650 still fits, and the cap still screws on all the way.

I also bought the BX842. This is a 1 1/2” x 1/4” x 1/8” N42 neodymium block magnet. It can be attached to the pocket clip, and then secured with heat-shrink tubing.

I installed these magnets as soon as I got the light. I haven’t regretted it. The only minor annoyance is that when I ride to the beach and set my helmet down in the sand, the pocket clip magnet collects all the iron in the sand. I don’t like sand. It’s coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.

While the H600c is primarily a headlamp, I do occasionally carry it in my pocket, and I’ve yet to be annoyed by the magnets. If it was a dedicated pocket light, perhaps I’d feel differently.

2026-05-08

backups, linux

Restic Continuum

As I was migrating my online backups to Restic, I was concurrently building a system that would allow me to use Restic to complete full-disk backups to external USB drives, thus replacing my use of cryptshot and rsnapshot. I give you Resnap.

For me, the main appeal of rsnapshot has always been that the resulting backups are just directories full of files. When it comes time to restore, no special tooling is required for access. Just copy the files over using rsync or cp or whatever tickles your fancy. If you can read the disk, you can recover data. Most competing systems create backups in a way that you also need the backup tool for recovery. This introduces fragility into the setup. My experience has been that most people do not think or care about this, but I have spent many years thinking about how not to lose data. I have certain requirements for backup systems. “Robustness” is a big one.

Restic does fall into the second category of tool. If you have a copy of a Restic repository but the Restic project has imploded and you do not have or cannot execute the tool, you’re in for a bad time. But the reason Restic has been on my radar since the project first stated a decade ago (it takes me a while to adopt new backup software – also I recall it took them a while to implement compression) is that it is compiled to a single, statically linked Go binary. This means you can easily store the tool itself alongside (not within) your backups. You’re not going to do that with a sprawling Python project like Borg, which is why I continued to use rsnapshot for my local full-disk backups even after I adopted Borg for online backups.

But with Restic you can just cp the binary to the backup drive. And that’s what I do. Resnap also provides resnap-restore, a simple wrapper script that makes it easy to perform the restic restore ... operation during full-disk recovery. This too is stored on the backup drive alongside the binary.

What this means is that you can use Resnap to create a full-disk backup to an external drive and then bury that drive in your backyard for 25 years (properly sealed). After you dig it up, as long as you have the passphrase, can read the drive’s filesystem (ext4 for me), and can execute a binary compiled for whatever architecture you were using 25 years ago (x86-64 for me) – both highly likely given the commonality of those systems – you are going to have no problem restoring that data (subject to the physics of spinning rust). An unlikely scenario perhaps, but that’s sort of the data backup baseline we plan for here at pig-monkey.com.

2026-05-07

micro

I would have to relinquish my Street Samurai credentials if I didn't occasionally wear tabi booties.

Bedrock Cairns and Luna Tabu 2.0. Paired with the mirrorshades, I am led to understand that this is what The Youth refer to as a “fit”.

As a wise woman once said, “You can’t let the little pricks generation-gap you.”

2026-05-06

backups, linux

Restic Adoption

After mulling it over for many cycles, I finally decided to migrate my online backups to Restic. As is my wont, I have published my solution as Restash so that members of the Pig Monkey Data Backups Fan Club can be like me.

The restash script will look pretty familiar to anyone who has been using my old Borg wrapper script. It is mostly the same basic structure, with Borg logic replaced with Restic logic, and two other significant differences.

Previously I ran the Borg wrapper hourly via a systemd timer, and used backitup to run the verification checks (and compacting) less frequently. Now the script has subcommands, and I use different systemd units to call the different functions on different schedules – backups more frequently, verification and pruning less frequently.

Previously I achieved redundancy by using Borg to backup hourly to my rsync.net account, while Tarsnap ran daily backups of a smaller subset of the same data. Now I’m using Restic to backup hourly to my rsync.net account, and also using Restic to backup the same data daily to a Backblaze B2 bucket. I’ve been an rsync.net customer since 2014 and I think highly of their service, but the B2 bucket is cheap insurance that helps me sleep better.

In the example config you will see that the SFTP_HOST is simply restic. That refers to an entry in my ~/.ssh/config, which looks something like this:

Host restic
    Hostname abc123.rsync.net
    User abc123
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/passphraseless-key
    IdentitiesOnly yes
    BatchMode yes
    ServerAliveInterval 60
    ServerAliveCountMax 3

The only other significant change from the old Borg wrapper script is that I broke out some of the config options, backup targets, and excludes to separate files to make it easier for you, my adoring public, to reuse the tool.

As hinted at in the README, I still use nmtrust to only execute backups on trusted networks. Don’t be a data litterer.

2026-05-05

gear, eyewear

Rudy Mirrorshades

I find it useful to periodically review certain practices, in order to determine when I am doing something out of rote habit rather than intention. In that vein, a couple weeks ago I took the photochromic laser red lenses out of my Rudy Rydon spectacles that I’ve been rocking since 2011. In their place I inserted the Stealth ImpactX Photochromic 2 Black lenses that came with the Z87 Rydons.

The difference was immediate. Black (or grey) tinted lenses pretty much suck. They dim the day-star, but make everything look flat. Contrast disappears. Terrain becomes muted. This has significant practical disadvantages when you are out and about in the world. I had forgotten how much the red lenses were levelling up my capabilities by enhancing my visual acuity. Most of the time I’ve spent out-of-doors for the past 8 eight years has been spent wearing said red lenses, so to me this was not an augmented enhancement but instead was just the way the world looked.

The alternative lenses I always carry in my bag are the Polar 3FX Brown Laser (for environments where I want lenses that are polarized and/or darker – water and snow being the primary applications) but, like red, the brown tint also increases contrast. I do sometimes still wear the Micropores, but guess what tint those lenses have. Brown.

Still, I forced myself to wear the black (or grey) lenses for a week. I wanted to see if my opinion would change after I got used to them. Reader, it did not. But I did find myself wondering how much the “laser” treatment contributes to contrast. I had a coupon with Rudy, so I ordered the ImpactX Photochromic 2 Laser Black lenses. These have the same black (or grey) tint as the ones I was using, but with the laser treatment.

I’ve been wearing those lenses the past few days now, and they actually do seem better. I’m not constantly thinking about how flat everything looks, and I can see potholes and such. They certainly remain inferior to the contrast provided by red (or brown) lenses. Basically they make everyday look kind of gloomy and overcast, even when it isn’t. On the other hand, the silver mirrorshade effect does look bitchin’ – and that counts for something – but that’s likely the only reason to wear them. I think the bottom line is that if you’re wearing black (or grey) tinted lenses, you are leaving capability on the table.

If my karma is to be reincarnated as a razorgirl, the photochromic laser red lenses are probably what I’ll get surgically implanted.