Henson AL13
Last July I purchased a Henson AL13 razor. I’ve been using my Feather AS-D2 since 2018, and remain pleased with it, but I wanted something lighter weight to travel with. The Feather AS-D2 weighs 91 grams. The Henson AL13 weighs 39 grams.
When I first got the Henson I used it for a week or two, and then used the Feather for a week or two, and then returned to the Henson. I continued going back and forth like this for about 4 months. I couldn’t decide which I liked better. The experience of using both is a bit different – each presents the edge of the blade at a slightly different angle, necessitating that the handle be held at a different angle against the face and neck, and the significant weight difference between the two causes some difference in the feel of the action – but once you make a few passes with either and understand how it wants to be used, the quality of the shave (and the required number of passes) is the same.
Stating that they perform the same is a huge compliment to the Henson. The Feather AS-D2 costs $170. The Henson AL13 provides the same performance for $70.
For the past 6 months I have only used the Henson. I load it with Feather blades.
Fu Shou Shan
This year I’ve mostly been drinking Fu Shou Shan.
It is a Formosa oolong tea, on the lighter end of the oxidation spectrum, which gives it a creamy and buttery taste that is somewhat reminiscent of a green tea. In the way that Snow Dragon blurs the boundary between green and white, Fu Shou Shan blurs the boundary between green and oolong. I seem to be going interstitial with my tea. Liminal, even.
I bought a little bit to try in January, and then in February braved the Lunar New Year crowds in Chinatown to procure a larger supply. I’ve been drinking it regularly since. Now that the weather is warming up, I will begin to bring the fruitier Mi Lan Xiang back into rotation – I’m especially looking forward to cold brew on hot days – but Fu Shou Shan will stay on the menu.
There aren't that many rocks, they said.
It isn’t too difficult, they said.
You’ll be home before sunset, they said.
Expanding the Fleet
In 2011 I visited R+E Cycles and ordered a custom Rodriguez bicycle. Since 2013 this had been my only vehicle. For the past decade or so I’ve been thinking about what a second bike may look like.
This year I decided I was finally ready to make a move. In the beginning of January I called R+E (once you’ve had them build one bicycle there’s little motivation to look elsewhere) and relayed my dreams. After two or three weeks of hashing out the build, I placed my deposit. 6 weeks later they shipped me a new bike.
Back in 2011 I was interested in a bike that could take me on any road. So it made sense for the second vehicle to be one that didn’t need roads. If it was 1994 this would easily be classified as a mountain bike. In 2024, the industry uses that term to refer to something completely different, and I have no idea what they would call this type of build.
The wheels are 26”, with a SON 28 dynamo hub in the front and a Rohloff SPEEDHUB in the rear. The frame is the same Reynolds 725 as my road bike, and in the same size, but with all the extra bits needed for a purpose-built Rohloff frame. Jones Loop H-Bars give me a range of positions.
This past summer, when I decided that I was ready to start thinking more seriously about a second bike, I first asked myself if I would rather spend money on my existing bike. If I had an unlimited budget, what would I change? And the answer was nothing. There may be some minor components I’d be interested in experimenting with here and there, but that bike is basically the idealized expression of everything I think a road bike should be. It took 12 years to get to that point. I’ll spend the next 12 years perfecting this one.
Link Log 2024-03-18
The Elusive Triple Crank
I broke the drive-side crank on my New Albion XDT crankset. I have strong legs.
The crankset was only 5 years old. I don’t track distance, so I don’t know what sort of mileage it had – more than 10,000 miles and less than 100,000, on a healthy mixture of pavement and dirt – but it is certainly too new for these sorts of shenanigans.
New Albion is one of the many brands of local company Merry Sales. They are responsible for bringing a number of Japanese bicycle components to the American market, and are usually associated with quality equipment. The New Albion XDT is basically a clone of the Sugino XD – made from the same molds, in the same factory, out of the same 6061 aluminum. I also have a lot of miles on an actual Sugino XD (and I put an old one back on after this break so I could limp around town while deciding on a more permanent fix). I’ve never had any problems with that crank. So I’m prepared to accept that this was just a fluke, and it probably would not happen again, but I still wanted to replace it with something I could have more confidence in.
Unfortunately the dystopian hellscape that is the modern bicycle industry means square taper triple cranks are few and far between.
Fortunately Rivendell is still fighting the good fight. The best option I found was their Silver crank. These are made of 7075 aluminum, and Rivendell claims that they pass the EN 14766 mountain bike fatigue standard. They use a 110 BCD for the middle and outer rings, and 74 BCD for the inner. That makes them compatible with any triple chainrings a reasonable connoisseur would want to use.
I bought their full triple crankset with 44x34x24 chainrings. But as I was waiting for it to ship, I sat staring at my broken New Albion crankset and decided that its 48x36x26 chainrings were all still in pretty good shape (if in need of a cleaning). And while I was prepared to try Rivendell’s gearing, I do really like the big 48 ring for flying down mountain roads, and I’ve never really felt like I need anything lower than a 26 granny gear on this bike. So when the Silver crankset arrived, I broke it apart, stored its chainrings for later use, and installed the (cleaned) rings from the New Albion.
The Silver seems to have a slightly wider Q factor than a Sugino or any of its clones. I run a Phil Wood bottom bracket with a 113mm spindle, just like God intended. After slapping on the Silver, I was getting some chain rub on the big chainring when in the two outermost sprockets on the cassette. I was able to adjust the derailleur to account for this, but that makes me think that a couple millimeter shorter spindle would be needed to maintain the same Q factor as I had before. The difference is minor enough that I don’t notice it when actually pedalling. It rides great. And it looks pretty good too.
The other options that turned up in my search all disappointed in one way or another.
The Velo Orange Grand Cru 110 is pretty, but they recommend a 124mm bottom bracket. I didn’t want to buy a new bottom bracket.
The Rene Herse Triple is pretty and passes the EN 14781 racing bike fatigue standard (which I’m guessing is lesser than the mountain bike standard), but is prohibitively expensive, and they too recommend a wider bottom bracket. Their instructions also state that “if you have broken cranks in the past, we recommend that you do not use lightweight components like the Rene Herse cranks.” I now belong to that rarefied coterie, so they’re not for me.
Sugino triples are still to be found here and there, but can be difficult to locate. I wanted something stronger than the 6061 aluminum of the XD, if only for my own psychological comfort. Some years ago I ran a Sugino Alpina 2 Triple. I don’t remember what kind of aluminum it was made of. I stripped the threads on the drive-side after I wore down the bearings on my previous Phil Wood bottom bracket until they were mush and rounded the spindle (they said it couldn’t be done – I took that as a challenge). So I didn’t really want another one of those.
If I had been displeased with the Silver, I would have purchased a Spa Cycles TD-2. This is another Sugino clone – made in the same factory, out of the same molds – but it is made of 2014 aluminum, so ought to be plenty strong. (It’s also a clone of the Alpina 2 rather than the XD. That means the 5th bolt is easy to access, rather than hidden behind the crank, which makes swapping around rings easier.)
But as it is I’m very happy with the Silver cranks. If you need a well designed and well built square taper triple crank – and who doesn’t – I’d say just buy one of those and be done with it. I see no reason why the cranks shouldn’t last me forever. When I need new chainrings, if I don’t want to go with the 44x34x24 gearing from Rivendell, I’ll probably buy the Spécialités T.A. rings that Spa Cycles sells. (I’m pretty anal about staying on top of chain wear, so it may be a while.)
Elzetta Retention
As I have previously mentioned, I started out using a Prometheus Lights Titanium Pocket Clip on the Elzetta Alpha before switching to the now-discontinued Raven Pocket Clip in 2016. The O-ring provided by the Raven Pocket Clip is key to how I use the light. It allows me to release the light and use my hand for something else, without dropping the light. The clip itself is perfectly adequate, though not as tight and springy as the titanium clip.
Last summer, I decided to move back to the titanium clip, but to add my own O-ring. I basically knocked off what Retention Ring sells, just using spare bits I already had around. It consists of a little bit of Lawson Ironwire, an O-ring with 1” internal diameter, a tiny piece of heat shrink tubing, and a knot. It isn’t pretty, but it has been working great as part of my EDC for the past 8 months.
Recent Inks
Goulet Pens will sell you sample vials of ink. I took advantage of this to expand beyond my long-time staple of Noodler’s 19001 Black, without ending up with a bunch of full bottles I wasn’t going to use. Mostly I was looking for a blue. I came out the other side with two new favorites – neither of which are really blue.
Noodler’s 19808 Heart of Darkness is more black than black. It’s like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black. It also dries relatively quickly, and writes well on the cheap paper one often encounters out and about in the world.
Noodler’s 19040 Air Corp Blue-Black isn’t really much of a blue-black. It is more of a teal-black. It’s a really pretty shade, and unique, but still subtle enough that it can be used anyplace there aren’t strict color requirements. This one also dries relatively quickly, and writes well on the vulgar paper of the unrefined. This ink loaded in my Pilot Vanishing Point is my daily writer now.
Working through all these sample vials over the last few months also caused me to move away from piston converter cartridges. I now just use standard cartridges, and refill them with a syringe and needle. This ends up being quicker, cleaner, and less hassle. It also means I can use the last little bit of ink in the container, without buying a snorkel.
The Things I Do for Time
I am a believer in the sacred word as defined in ISO 8601, and the later revelations such as RFC 3339. Numerical dates should be formatted as YYYY-MM-DD. Hours should be written in 24-hour time. I will die on this hill.
Since time immemorial, this has been accomplished on Linux systems by setting LC_TIME to the en_DK locale. More specifically, the git history for glibc shows that en_DK was added (with ISO 8601 date formatting) by Ulrich Drepper on 1997-03-05.
A few years ago, this stopped working in Firefox. Instead Firefox started to think that numerical dates were supposed to be formatted as DD/MM/YYYY, which is at least as asinine as the typical American MM-DD-YYYY format. I finally got fed up with this and decided to investigate.
The best discussion of the issue is in Thunderbird bug 1426907. Here I learned that the problem is caused by Thunderbird (and by extension Firefox) no longer respecting glibc locales. Mozilla software simply takes the name of the system locale, ignores its definition, and looks up formatting in the Unicode CLDR. The CLDR has redefined en_DK to use DD/MM/YYYY1.
The hack to address the problem was also documented in the Thunderbird bug report. The CLDR includes a definition for en_SE which uses YYYY-MM-DD2 and 24-hour time. (It also separates the time from the date with a comma, which is weird, but Sweden is weird, so I’ll allow it.) There is no en_SE locale in glibc. But it can be created by linking to the en_DK locale. This new locale can then be used for LC_TIME.
$ sudo ln -s /usr/share/i18n/locales/en_DK /usr/share/i18n/locales/en_SE
$ echo 'en_SE.UTF-8 UTF-8' | sudo tee -a /etc/locale.gen
$ sudo locale-gen
$ sed -i 's/^LC_TIME=.*/LC_TIME=en_SE.UTF-8/' /etc/locale.conf
Now anything that respects glibc locales will effectively use en_DK, albeit under a different name. Anything that uses CLDR will just see that it is supposed to use a locale named en_SE, which still results in sane formatting. Thus one can use HTML date input fields without going crazy.
I spent yesterday afternoon at the California International Antiquarian Book Fair.
They had first editions from everyone from William Gibson to Isaac Newton, proofs and manuscripts from Neal Stephenson and Ludwig Wittgenstein, 17th century books on witchcraft with binding that did not appear to be from livestock, and Turing’s programming manual for the Ferranti Mark 1. But the books I saw the most copies of at different booths were firsts of The Monkey Wrench Gang and Grapes of Wrath.
Many of the sellers were from London or Paris. So I find myself imagining a shadowy cabal of Parisian antiquarians, realizing that they have a show in San Francisco coming up and wondering what the Americans will buy. “J’ai trouvé!” one of them declares. “Ed Abbey and Steinbeck. They won’t be able to resist.”
How I Audio: Mobile Edition
I do not regularly listen to audio of any sort outside of home or the office. But I value the ability to do so, so I always carry earbuds in my bag. As with headphones, the cable is the usual failure point. The solution, once again, is modularity.
Specifically, I recommend skipping the entire consumer earbud category and going straight to “professional” in-ear monitors.
I carry Shure SE215 IEMs. These are near the bottom-end of the IEM market. I’ve heard people claim that paying hundreds, or thousands, of dollars for custom-molded IEMs is worth it. I’ve heard other people claim that the Chi-Fi market now offers IEMs that are cheaper than the SE215s and yet provide better audio quality. To my non-discerning ears, the SE215s sound great, and they satisfy my listening and comfort requirements. But more important than the specific make or model is that most products in this market segment will offer replaceable cables. The SE215s use an MMCX connector.
For portable use, I want a cable with an inline mic (and 3-button remote) so that I have the option of using it to go hands free with my pocket telephone. Shure sells IEMs with such a cable. This cable failed for me after a couple years. Fortunately, the Chinese Communist Party has realized Marx’s dream of a practically infinite supply of generic MMCX cables with inline mics for dirt cheap. I’m now using a cable I bought off AliExpress for about $10, and if I have to spend another $10 in another couple years I shan’t shed a tear. (If this was for more than occasional and incidental use, I would likely purchase something like the Antlion Kumura Cable or Kinera Gramr, but I’m not going to carry that sort of thing around in my bag just in case.)
I prefer silicone eartips when out and about in the world. They are long lasting and easy to clean. They don’t provide as much isolation as foam tips, but I consider that a feature rather than a bug; I don’t want to be cut off from the surrounding environment. (In special circumstances where I do actually want to block or diminish environmental sound, I use actual ear protection). My favorite tips are the Spinfit CP100+. The medium size feels good upon initial insertion, but I find the small size is more comfortable after a couple hours of continuous penetration.
As a general rule, I subscribe to the Kamala Harris School of Audio Peripherals, as documented in my favorite example of modern hard-hitting investigative journalism. Wireless is a trap. But I admit that there are times when a wireless connection is convenient and worth the additional hassle, however few and far between those times may be. With a modular system, this can easily be addressed by the addition of an adapter.
Originally I thought I might purchase something like the FiiO UTWS5 or Shure RMCE-TW2. But both of these utilize telephone software, which I’m allergic to, and I realized I didn’t actually understand what the sales pitch was for this new-fangled category of “true wireless” earbuds.
Instead, I ended up going back to AliExpress and purchasing a much cheaper necklace style adapter. This isn’t something I carry everyday, but it’s nice to have the option to grab it when plans warrant.
Bluetooth is the one component of the modern audio stack where the technology is still improving – or, at least, getting less bad – so using an interchangeable module here makes sense. The adapter I purchased is built on the Qualcomm QCC5181 chip, providing Bluetooth 5.4, which appears to still be the latest and greatest thing. Portable Bluetooth devices have a limited service life due to their integrated batteries, so again, modularity makes sense here. When these batteries fail, or when I determine it is worth updating to the latest chip, I just buy a new adapter rather than purchasing a whole new system. (It’d be great if we could buy adapters with replaceable batteries, but that seems to be a dream too far.)
If someday in the future I decide it is worth it to buy custom molded IEMs, I’ll just order them with an MMCX connector and they’ll be able to play nicely with my existing ecosystem of cables and adapters. This is the antithesis of the market trend and may result in the revocation of one’s listener license.
How I Audio: Desktop Edition
At my desk, I use open-back, circumaural, wired headphones. This technology peaked decades ago. Despite what marketers may claim, there is no reason to keep up with the flavor of the month. At home, I use the Sennheiser HD 600. At work, I use the Massdrop Sennheiser HD 6XX. These two models have some aesthetic differences, but in my experience they are identical in use. I can’t tell a difference between them when they are on my head, either in feel or in sound.
The key with both of these headphones is that they are modular. Every pair of headphones I’ve ever had fail has failed either at the cable or due to the disintegration of the padding. Both are replaceable on the Sennheiser cans. The cables and ear pads on the 600 and 6XX are interchangeable, so I only have to stock one set of spare parts. (The headband pads are different, but I wear the headphones with this pad just lightly resting on the top of my head, so those pads last indefinitely.)
I had to replace the cable on both headphones after five years of use. In both instances, I went with a generic 3-meter Chi-Fi cable from NewFantasia. It is cheaper than the official Sennheiser replacement cable, and it works great. The braided sleeve may provide some extra durability.
I replaced the ear pads in one pair after four years, and in the other pair after six years. Since ear pads can actually effect the sound, unlike the cable, I went with the official Sennheiser replacement pads.
Both my Sennheiser cans have Antlion ModMic microphones attached (one has the Uni, the other has an older discontinued model). This allows for audio calls without needing to switch to some sort of inferior, integrated solution. Boom mic or bust. Importantly, the ModMic has an integrated mute switch. This allows the microphone to be kept muted, and only made hot when actively speaking. (When not on a call, I unplug the ModMic cable.) Because it is a simple two position switch, it provides haptic feedback and thus can be toggled blindly. With this system, you don’t look like a noob trying to find the software mute button in whatever video chat software the kids are using this week, nor will you start talking without realizing that you’re still on mute. Just touch the switch with your finger and you’ll know what position it is in.
The ModMic cable and headphone cable are wrapped together in a length of Techflex Flexo F6N0.25 braided cable sleeve. This keeps the cables together, and also provides some extra protection when they inevitably get stepped on or rolled over by a chair.
Both cables are plugged into a Schiit Fulla DAC. This is the only piece of audio equipment I have that is approaching the “audiophile” market (but is incredibly cheap by the standards of that market). More important than the purported improvement in audio quality that this provides is the volume control knob. I’m a sucker for sexy knobs.
I recently got the newer USB-C model of the Fulla at home, and moved my older Fulla from home to work. Previously I used the UGREEN USB Audio Adapter at work. This was adequate for solving the problem of needing to plug dual TRS connectors into my laptop, but it did not provide the hot knob fondling action I desire.
I also keep Kingtop Headphone Mic Splitter cables in a desk drawer at home and work, so that I may use this rig with my cellular telephone. I use this rarely, as most voice communications these days are VoIP based, and thus performed on my laptop, rather than PSTN.
When not in use, the headphones are stored under my desk on the Elevation Lab Anchor.
The theme with my entire desktop audio setup is modularity. The headphones allow for pads and cables to be replaced. The mic is a separate unit. The DAC is a standalone device. All these components can be easily swapped if one fails. All of them are based on long established technologies that have already reached a practical level of perfection, providing me with a level of immunity to advertising in these spaces.
