pig-monkey.com - general

All Watched Over

2024-12-17T00:00:00-08:00

I had They See Your Photos use the Google Vision API to analyze my most recent selfie.

The foreground shows a man relaxing on a portable camping chair next to his touring bicycle. The bike is heavily laden with panniers suggesting a long journey. In the background, there is a dry, scrubby landscape with low-lying vegetation and sparse trees under a clear blue sky. The location appears to be a trail or roadside somewhere in a temperate climate. The overall setting suggests a sense of adventure and self-sufficiency.

A Caucasian male, appearing to be in his 30s, of seemingly middle-class economic status, is seen taking a break, enjoying a drink from a thermos. He seems relaxed and content; possibly on a solo bikepacking trip. His attire suggests an outdoor lifestyle and active pursuits. His expression appears peaceful and reflective. The image appears to be taken with a professional camera during daytime.

The man’s sunglasses appear to be polarized, which might suggest he is protecting his eyes from glare on a bright sunny day. A small, almost invisible detail of a thin twig can be seen to the left of the bicycle tire. The overall setting suggests a planned stop during his journey, with equipment suggesting a well-prepared and experienced cyclist. The overall cleanliness of his equipment points to a tidy and organized individual.

It hallucinated panniers (the bike has a bar bag and saddle bag, not panniers – get your luggage straight, Google). There is nothing heavy about my tea party load-out. I’m out for the afternoon. The thermos is on the ground; I’m drinking from a mug.

But I do like to think of myself as well-prepared, experienced, tidy, and organized. I’m glad the Machine sees me that way. I feel seen.

Link Log 2024-12-16

2024-12-16T00:00:00-08:00

Science Fiction as a Literary Genre: Science Fiction versus Mundane Culture

what does your local architecture student carry: too much.

Specific Suggestions: Simple Sabotage for the 21st Century

RFC 35140: The Do-Not-Stab flag in the HTTP Header

Anime Mechanics

Claim File Helper

Spark Joy

2024-12-12T00:00:00-08:00

I have a rule that I am allowed to purchase certain goods whenever I both can afford to do so and think that I may possibly have a use for them. It is a small list, including items such as Voile straps, Abloy Protec2 padlocks, and Pelican cases. Even if the specific model I purchase ends up not working for whatever project I currently have in mind, I can always use more of these items, and will never regret the purchase¹. In the parlance of our times, these items spark joy.

Recently I determined that my zibaldoni situation was getting out of hand. I had completed notebooks in two different locations, empty notebooks in three, and accoutrements like covers and inserts all over the place. “Self,” I said to myself, “This situation will not stand.” But it seemed like the perfect excuse to buy another Pelican case. I trawled eBay for a week until I found a good deal on a used yellow 1450. This now holds all notebooks, along with their directly related accessories. It sits on top of a cabinet next to my other 1450 (a previous eBay find). I figure I’ve got space for at least two more.

Notes

↵ Purchases of all other durable goods go through a protracted, multi-day period of hem and haw, where I ask myself: do I really need this thing, is the particular model I'm eyeing really the best suited to the problem I am trying to solve, will the item work in the short run but cause me to have regrets later on, etc.

Clipped, Hot, and Metro

2024-12-04T00:00:00-08:00

ASP recently redesigned their Metro Defender OC sprays to include a clip. This is an excellent addition. Some years ago I had tried to find add-on pen clips that may work on my old Defenders, but had no success. Previously I used a Blue Force Gear mag pouch to keep the OC in place on my Raven Pocket Shield. Now I can clip it to the shield directly, for less bulk in the pocket. Much speed, little drag.

ASP is also now including UV dye in their cartridges. This is a good thing. The cartridge itself is identical to the old ones. The new ones with the UV dye will work in the old clipless Defenders. The old cartridges without the UV will work in the newly clipped Defenders.

The way the head and body thread together on the new clipped models is different. A head from an old Defender cannot be attached to the new body, nor can the new head attach to the old body. I have made my peace with this.

The new head does have a logo on it, which is disappointing. Previously the head and body were both sterile. The pocket clip is attached to the body, which means it is below the logo on the head. The clip can be spun around freely, but given the way the safety works, if you were carrying this clipped into a shirt pocket you want the clip positioned such that the logo was facing outward. Anybody looking at you could see the thing in your shirt pocket, which otherwise looks vaguely pen-like, says ASP on it. This is a problem that I will probably eventually solve with tape or nail polish or sandpaper.

The clip (and UV dye) make a good tool better. I have been carrying the new one in my pocket for the past couple months, and have my older clipless models relegated to applications where a clip does not matter.

I still find it useful to apply skateboard grip tape to the safety. One time I tried hockey stick grip tape, but it did not really contribute anything useful. Something with more chutzpa is wanted.

Prior to these design updates, ASP also renamed the product line. The model previously called the “Key” is now the “D2”. This is the one that I like. (I ultimately decided that the smaller one – “D1”, nee “Palm” – didn’t float my boat.)

When I bought my two units in September, I could find no dealers who had updated their product photography to show the clip, nor was it clear what version they were selling. I ordered from ASP directly (and paid their ridiculous shipping fee) to ensure that I got the clip.

I enjoyed this excerpt from a psychiatric report on Joan Didion in the summer of 1968:

2024-12-03T00:00:00-08:00

It is as though she feels deeply that all human effort is foredoomed to failure, a conviction which seems to push her further into a dependent, passive withdrawal. In her view she lives in a world of people moved by strange, conflicted, poorly comprehended, and, above all, devious motivations which commit them inevitably to conflict and failure…

That was then a medical diagnosis, but today would just be seen as the normative baseline of the zeitgeist (within cells interlinked).

By way of comment I offer only that an attack of vertigo and nausea does not now seem to me an inappropriate response to the summer of 1968.

From the titular essay of The White Album.

Link Log 2024-11-29

2024-11-29T00:00:00-08:00

Re-Noted: Carl Jung’s Midlife-Crisis Notebooks

B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber in Action | Training

The Power of the Powerless - Václav Havel

Apple Intelligence is for the Stupid Ones

The thought doesn’t count

Leica’s engraved fonts

The New New Class?

On Song Zhong

2024-11-27T00:00:00-08:00

I bought a couple ounces of Song Zhong the last time I found myself in Chinatown. Red Blossom recommends brewing it at 210°F. I did this for my first few sessions, and was not impressed with the tea. Then one day I accidentally brewed the Song Zhong at 190°F (I thought it was my old pal MLX in the gaiwan). That resulted in a much tastier liquor. I’ve been working through the rest of the leaves at that temperature.

I still only brew it for Red Blossom’s recommended time of 30 seconds. Though sometimes I get distracted writing a blog post and don’t decant it for 90 seconds. I’m not above drinking it. Life is full of sacrifice.

Her Homelife is Stormy

2024-11-26T00:00:00-08:00

In the Tamara de Lempicka exhibit at the de Young there’s a wall with a timeline of her life. The entry for 1923 reads:

Her homelife is stormy; Tadeusz grows intolerant of his wife’s affairs, cocaine use, late nights spent at clubs followed by valerian-induced sleep, and long work sessions listening to Richard Wagner at full volume.

A few years later they were divorced.

I prefer to interpret this as if he could have put up with the affairs, the coke, the clubbing and valerian, but the Wagner was just a bridge too far.

As someone who went to two performances of Tristan und Isolde this season, I’m not sure I concur with his assessment.

The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

2024-11-09T00:00:00-08:00

Goya at the Legion Centennial.

Link Log 2024-11-04

2024-11-04T00:00:00-08:00

Twin Peaks Actually Explained (No, Really)

Russian Sabotage in the Gig-Economy Era

Herzog on the obscenity of the jungle

Space Exploration Logo Archive

Miniatua Limited Edition

Monochrome Candy

Pirep

A Typical Weekend: Pacific Overwatch Edition

2024-10-20T00:00:00-07:00

Pedal across the Golden Gate to abandoned coastal fortifications.
Brew premium oolong.
Engage in staring contest with the Pacific.
There is no step 4.

Link Log 2024-10-13

2024-10-13T00:00:00-07:00

In tepid defense of seat packs

Eun Sun Kim: A Journey into Lohengrin

Bike Touring Gear List: Everything I Carry After 12 Years Around The World

Borah Gear Bivies Double Reviews: Long Term of Cuben and First Impressions of Dimma

A San Francisco Bookshop Tour

2024-10-07T00:00:00-07:00

San Francisco is a good town for bookshops. This is a route I’ve done a few times. It’s like a bar crawl, but with fewer alcoholics.

Start at Stout Architectural Books. This is a great shop for flipping through pretty picture books – think Phaidon, Taschen, etc. Most of what they carry is foreign to me, and not the type of book I am likely to come across elsewhere. I can spend a long time here.

From Stout, it is only a few blocks to City Lights. This is the most famous bookshop in the city. It is always be packed with tourists, which makes it less pleasant for browsing. It isn’t a large place, considering the size of their collection, so you’re constantly squeezing around people in narrow aisles. But I seem to only end up here on weekends – weekdays may be better. If you are here on the weekend, you should see the legendary V. Vale and his RE/SEARCH Publications table just outside, in the alley between City Lights and Vesuvio. Make sure to browse his wares.

If you need a potty break at this point, you’re in luck. San Francisco is notorious for how few publicly accessible bathrooms it has, but one of the nicest is just a few blocks away at The Ritz-Carlton on Stockton & California. Walk in the main entrance like you belong. Try to project an aura of being parvenue and you’ll fit right in. Take an immediate left, and in maybe 10 or 15 feet there will be a short hallway to your left. The bathrooms are at the end of that hallway. No keys or code required. I don’t always defecate in this part of town, but when I do, I poo at The Ritz.

The next bookshop, Green Apple Books, is across town in the Richmond. This is the best general-interest bookshop in the city. It doesn’t look like much from the street, but is deceptively large inside. Of all the shops, this one takes the longest to browse. It is about 4 miles from City Lights and The Ritz, so if you’re on foot you might want to jump on the 1 California.

From Green Apple, head two blocks west to Pho Huynh Sang. This is, in fact, not a bookshop. But they have good phở and bún, so I pretty much always eat here when I’m in this part of town and can justify a meal. The staff is friendly and the place is big enough that there’s always a place to sit without having to wait in a line.

After you’ve had a meal, you are allowed desert, so you might as well walk one block east back to Toy Boat. I usually buy a loaf of the banana bread.

The final stop is Borderlands, recently relocated to the Haight. This is our genre bookshop – scifi, horror, fantasy. I’m only interested in the first of those genres, so I don’t usually spend too long here. But I do like to at least peruse the new arrivals table in the front, and the used book shelf in the back room under the office window. The staff here are exceptionally good at recommendations. Give them the name of some obscure SF book you liked, and they’ll be able to recommend something else similar. You don’t even need to remember the title – just give them a vague description of the plot and what the primary color on the cover was and they’ll probably know what you’re talking about.

I had my first road-side repair on my Rohloff bike today.

2024-09-29T00:00:00-07:00

While flying down the side of Tamalpais via Eldridge for the first time in a couple months I found myself wondering if that trail somehow managed to get even rockier. Once I regained the pavement at sea level I went to shift and my twist shifter just spun. Turns out I had rattled the shift box off the hub.

To be fair, I hadn’t popped off the rear wheel or otherwise touched that bolt since before my recent tour, so it could have been working itself loose over the course of the two airplane flights and 700+ miles through the northwestern hinterlands, rather than just the ridiculous rocks of Eldridge, Indian Fire, Blithedale, et al.

It’s easy enough reattach, though since I had moved the twist shiftier I had to reset the gear selection. I think that’s a pretty good reliability record for 7 months of riding. Maintenance has been minimal: I’ve swapped the brake pads, and I think I’ve lubed the chain twice. I think all the components are just about broken in now.

Ghostrider Equipment Kermode

2024-09-21T00:00:00-07:00

I wanted to carry bear spray on my recent tour through grizz country. A stem bag, such as the imitable Revelate Mountain Feedbag works well for this, but the two stem bags that are always part of my touring luggage system are already used for other purposes. There’s a number of people out there selling solutions to the problem of how to carry bear spray on a bicycle. I looked at all the ones I could find online, and chose the Ghostrider Equipment Kermode.

Ghostrider offers their holster in a direct mount option, where it attaches to standard bottle cage bosses. This would require giving up a bottle cage, which is unappealing to me. They also offer a universal mount option, which just includes two Voile Nano straps. I bought the universal option so that I could mount the holster any place I could dream up. I ended up strapping it down near the top of the down tube, canted to the right-hand side. This did not interfere with any of the other equipment that gets attached to my bike in touring mode, and allowed for a quick and easy draw. The position also did not interfere with drawing my bottle to the right-hand side from its down tube cage.

The holster worked out great. It carried an 8.1 oz can of Counter Assault bear seasoning perfectly. No rattling or moving around, yet easy to pop out with minimal effort.

Ghostrider includes an extra retention strap that can wrap around the can. Its use is optional, and mostly for peace of mind when flying down rocky trail. I kept it on while I was riding. For me, carrying the bear spray was mostly about having it in camp. I wanted the can to be accessible all the time, but I didn’t think it likely that I would have an argument with a bear while riding down the highway. I decided that the extra motion required to unhook the retention strap was acceptable. But an important factor in this decision was that I knew that if I did not keep that strap secured, I would never see it again.

This is my one complaint about the holster. Neither end of the retention strap is well secured to the holster itself. Both are just pulled over open hooks that are molded into the holster. When using the strap to wrap around a can, the tension keeps it in place. But when you flick off one end to release the can, the other end of the strap can easily fall off. Losing it eventually is pretty much guaranteed if you don’t keep both ends hooked. And it is some sort of proprietary doohickey, not something you can easily replace. I like that the strap can be completely removed, but I’d also like to be able to attach just one end and trust that it’ll still be there when next I look down. I also think it could work just as well if it was simply a piece of shock cord, which could be easily replaced if the user does misplace (or break) it.

This complaint is minor, as the holster does hold the can securely enough for my riding even without the extra strap. It is an excellent solution to the problem of carrying bear spray on a bike.

Link Log 2024-09-20

2024-09-20T00:00:00-07:00

Departure Mono

The Tannhäuser Gate

Owen D. Pomery: Work

Walking Mongolia beyond Ulaanbaatar

Basic Mechanisms In Fire Control Computers

Juice rerouted to Venus in world’s first lunar-Earth flyby

When the Mismanagerial Class Destroys Great Companies

Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute: Index of Aesthetics