pig-monkey.com - general

Link Log 2025-07-20

2025-07-20T00:00:00-07:00

What’s in my bike bag after cycling six years the world?

My 10 Years World Tour Bicycle Setup!

how to place your desk in Feng Shui?

Lateralus (Summer Woods, 2025)

Dublin (Nine Inch Nails, 2025)

How to Brush Teeth

2025-07-17T00:00:00-07:00

As a result of reevaluating my dental ablutions I have adopted the modified Bass brushing technique. With this technique one grips the toothbrush similar to a pen, places the brush head such that it is half on the tooth and half on the gum, and tilts the brush to about a 45 degree angle. Then it’s your standard circular movement with very little pressure. Other variants use short horizontal strokes instead of circles, or add a sweep away from the gumline when finishing a section. I’m told that some version of this is the most effective technique. It requires fine motor control, which probably explains why none of us were taught it as small children. But, better late that never.

One of the nice side effects of this technique is that doing it right takes about two minutes. Previously, when just mindlessly brushing without attempting to apply a specific technique, I would divide the mouth into quadrants and try to spend about 30 seconds in each so that I’d reach that 2 minute target that everybody says should be the goal. But that does not necessarily result in an even distribution of the work. Trying to target a specific time is dumb. Timers, whether standalone or integrated into the toothbrush, are dumb. No magic results from simply having the brush in your mouth for 2 minutes. Instead, adopt the correct technique, apply it properly, and let the time take care of itself.

Useful demonstrations, which helped me as I was trying to figure out the motion and its variants (while the “Bass technique” is a specific thing, the “modified” in “modified Bass technique” seems to mean different things to different people), are here and here and here.

The guide published by Curaprox is a helpful summary of how to brush one’s teeth. I first used their toothbrush last year and could not figure out why the handle was shaped the way it is. Then this year I learned how to properly brush my teeth. Turns out their design is actually pretty good. But I haven’t come across anything that makes me think one particular model of toothbrush is any better than the other. It just needs to have soft bristles and fit in your mouth. Since moving to this technique, I have found myself preferring a smaller head than I did previously. The Curaprox CS 5460 and Nimbus Compact both check those boxes for me, but I’m sure there’s about a billion other models out there that do as well.

The Future Without Future

2025-07-16T00:00:00-07:00

I listen to 65daysofstatic and their generative noise program Wreckage Systems. My favorite advertisement for Wreckage Systems is on the Debris album (a blind stumbling through the cratered landscape of the musical-industrial complex):

The future without future. The ceaseless turmoil of now. A world of fog and foreboding. Wreckage Systems are the lamp by your side. The stranger who walks beside you. The hand in the dark. Wreckage Systems is the scaffolding that we erect to stop the crushing wave of the heavy sky falling down and around us, dissolving into the ocean that is already lapping around our ankles. Join us and help the dedicated team over at 65LABS expand their noise as together we strive towards utopia.

No future.

Titanium Tongue Tool

2025-07-15T00:00:00-07:00

One of my recent projects has been to reevaluate my dental ablutions. As it turns out, mankind’s knowledge has progressed since I was first taught to brush my teeth as a toddler, and some of my practices wanted updating.

I bought my first tongue scraper back in 2018. It was one of those U-shaped copper ones from India. I used it occasionally, but did not incorporate it into my daily ritual until I began this reevaluation at the end of last year. I have decided that I do like using tongue scrapers, and want to do so daily, but I always found the two-handed nature of this style vaguely annoying. I had previously come across the one-handed models that are more spooned shaped, and had even seen that Tongue Sweeper makes a titanium version. As an addict for anything titanium, I immediately wanted this for no other reason than it was titanium. But at $42 I could not justify the cost.

Then last month I happened to see the Tongue Sweeper Titanium Pro on eBay for only $27. Obviously I bought it.

Given the price discrepancy, I assumed this was going to be a knock-off, or a unit from a box that fell off a truck somewhere. But it shipped direct from Tongue Sweeper Actual, is serialized, and included a certificate of authenticity in the box.

So now I clean my tongue with titanium every morning, and I feel like a million bucks doing it.

That old copper U-shaped one weighs 30 grams. I have never travelled with it, and would never travel with it. The new titanium one? 7 grams (including the colored silicone ring). I bought this after returning from my recent 3-week bicycle tour this Spring, so I haven’t actually travelled with it yet. But at 7 grams, I probably will.

Up-Armoring My Face

2025-07-14T00:00:00-07:00

In January 2024 I decided that I was going to start to wear sunscreen on my face every day. Ambient radiation is no good. Helios wants to kill you. These are truly the last days. Et cetera.

What holds one back from wearing sunscreen every day is that American sunscreens are shit. They do the job, but they feel heavy, leave a white cast, and are generally not the sort of thing you can throw on and forget about. As such, connoisseurs of anti-radiation face-armor opt for products from Asia. I have spent the past 19 months purchasing a number of different bottles, tossing something on my face every day, and spelunking the depths of /r/AsianBeauty and the related corners of the blog-o-sphere for data on previous engagements.

First, Asian sunscreens generally come in one of three types: Essence, Milk, or Gel. Milk is so-called because it comes out similar to milk: white and runny. Essence is squeezed out of the tube with a viscosity and consistency reminiscent of the typical American product. (If we were sticking with the diary analogy, I’d call this one Greek yogurt). Gel is somewhere in between the two (low-fat yogurt?). Milk tends to be the most durable. Essence is more moisturizing. I like both Milk and Essence, and have no time for Gel.

The Internet will tell you that the best (or “HG” in Youth-speak – eventually I learned that this is an abbreviation for “holy grail”) sunscreen is Shiseido Anessa Perfect UV Sunscreen Milk from Nippon. This is the one I bought first. I did not like it initially, but I tried it again after a few months and decided that The Internet was correct. The problem I first had was that I was not applying enough. A lifetime of shitty American sunscreens had trained me to apply as little sunscreen as possible. After a few months of playing around with products that are actually good, I figured out the proper amount (the two finger thing is a good guide, but the runniness of Milk-variants require a little more), and, lo, when applied properly and in the correct amount, Shiseido Anessa Perfect UV Sunscreen Milk does work great. It is one of the few that stands up well to sweat and Extreme Activity™. Unfortunately, it is expensive. So I save this for when I know I’m going to be out all day, sack deep in ball sweat.

For every other day of the year, I have settled on Rohto Mentholatum Skin Aqua Super Moisture UV Essence. I can toss this one on in the morning, forget about it a few minutes later, and – as long as I don’t get wet – it works all day. (All of these things say you’re supposed to reapply every couple hours, but I rarely think to do that.) This one is cheaper than the Anessa, so I can apply it everyday without feeling like I’m breaking the bank.

One of these two products goes on my face every morning, as well as my neck and ears. It covers the whole face. If I’m outside in the sun, I probably have a hat covering my forehead and sunglasses covering my eyes, but I still up-armor the whole face. It doesn’t matter what the weather is, or what my plans for the days are. Developing the habit is the key to preparedness. On sunny days, the same product goes on my arms. I don’t believe in body-part-specific sunscreen, though my extensive research has shown that some Beauty Bloggers disagree with me.

I order this stuff from both YesStyle and Stylevana, and have had good experiences with both. I gather that Jeff Bezos will sell you some of these products, but I don’t trust his store for anything I’m going to put on or in my body.

My notes on all the products I’ve tried are as follows.

Shiseido Anessa Perfect UV Sunscreen Milk

Gold bottle.
Minor scent, but fairly unoffensive.
No sting.
Great sweat resistance, if applied properly.
Forget its on a couple minutes after application.
Great daily wear, but expensive.
Great for high exertion.

Rohto Mentholatum Skin Aqua Super Moisture UV Essence

Blue bottle.
No scent.
No sting.
Great daily wear.
Forget its on a couple minutes after application.
Does not hold up to sweat. Not appropriate for high exertion.

Rohto Mentholatum Skin Aqua Super Moisture UV Milk

No scent.
No sting.
Great daily wear.
Forget its on a couple minutes after application.
Minor resistance to sweat. Not appropriate for high exertion.
Small bottle and milk-type requires higher volume for coverage, so more expensive than Essence-type equivalent.

Rohto Mentholatum Skin Aqua Super Moisture UV Gel

Blue bottle.
No scent.
Minor sting.
Does not hold up to sweat. Not appropriate for high exertion.
Slight sheen.
Slightly inferior to Essence variant.

Rohto Mentholatum Skin Aqua Super Moisture Barrier UV Essence

Gold bottle.
No scent.
No sting.
Great daily wear.
Goes on a little thicker than the non-Barrier blue bottle one.
A little more “dewy”, but not shiny.
Requires more scrubbing to remove.
Minor resistance to sweat. Not appropriate for high exertion.

Biore UV Aqua Rich Watery Essence

Blue bottle.
No scent.
Stings around eyes.
Would be good for daily wear, but for sting.
This + wind = tears
Minor resistance to sweat. Not appropriate for high exertion.

SKIN1004 Madagascar Centella Hyalu-Cica Water Fit Sun Serum

No scent.
No sting.
Goes on super light, immediately disappears.
Vanishes at the first hint of sweat or moisture.
Would be great for daily wear, but for complete lack of water resistance.

Purito SEOUL Daily Soft Touch Sunscreen

No scent.
Goes on a little thicker than others.
Dewy. A bit of a shine.
Not great for daily wear due to shine.
Very slight tackiness when I touch my face throughout the day.

I needed a break from all the death and violence in The Iliad.

2025-07-09T00:00:00-07:00

So I read Fight Club.

Further Fingering

2025-07-08T00:00:00-07:00

Since jumping on the variable resistance train a few years ago, the number of bodyweight exercises I do has steadily diminished. One thing I do still practice – pretty much daily – are pull-ups.

I’ve never owned one of those pull-up bar contraptions you install in a doorway. But I live in San Francisco, where we more-or-less stopped building housing after the reign of King George V. This means I have crown moulding along my walls and above my doorways. I just hop up there, hang from my fingers, and do pull-ups from that. Another application of finger strength.

The first time I tried this, the sharp edge of the moulding was rather painful on my fingers. A bit of padding was wanted. I remembered I had some old pot handle covers that I never use. I put those between my finger tips and the wood, and it worked great. It gives a little padding, and increases the surface area I’m gripping on just a skosh. These have since lived near my bathroom door. My morning routine after getting out of bed is: piss, pull-ups, ablutions.

I can’t remember the last time I did a pull-up from a bar, so I’m not sure how the difficulty of my practice compares. But pulling myself up using a small ledge is a better analogue for any sort of real world activity.

Fingering

2025-07-07T00:00:00-07:00

I may have given the impression that the Harambe System is the only muscle building equipment I use, but there are two exceptions to that. I’ve been using a Gripmaster Pro for the past 10 years, and a Captains of Crush Gripper for a bit longer.

Back in 2015, shortly after I first met Ed Calderon, he was using my body to demonstrate for Mark Denny a selection of the BDSM techniques he had learned from Japanese prostitutes.¹ In the moments of clarity between pain, I was impressed by the strength of his individual fingers. Later, when we were decent, I asked him about it and he pointed me to the Gripmaster Pro. I bought one.

I keep the Gripmaster at my desk at work, and the Captains of Crush Gripper at my desk at home, and use both the way The Youth use their so-called “fidget spinners”, rather than as part of any sort of purposeful program.

Notes

↵ You can't open the book of my life and jump in the middle.

Link Log 2025-07-06

2025-07-06T00:00:00-07:00

myNoise

Ghost Dog and selective philosphy

The Visual World of ‘Samurai Jack’

Aphex Twin: a case study in nostalgia

How to Dress and Undress your Home

The Blade Runner FAQ: Language Matters

The discreet charm of the infrastructureless

Recruitment

2025-07-05T00:00:00-07:00

Back in May I received an email, improperly routed to my spam folder, which contained my (long-expected) invitation to join the Illuminati. I’ve yet to receive further details, but I figure I’m basically in at this point. It isn’t like they’re going to send me a secret decoder ring in the mail.

Date: Mon, 19 May 2025 14:25:37 +0300

From: The illuminati alexandr@medicine-it.ru

To: Recipients alexandr@medicine-it.ru

Subject: illuminati recruitment.

Greetings, from the illuminati world elite empire, Are you a business Man/woman, politician, musician, student, employee. Do you strive to expand your knowledge to achieve personal growth, Do you want to be rich?, need protection, be powerful and famous. If YES!. Then you can achieve your dreams by being a member of the great illuminati empire, Once you are a member all your dreams and heart desire can be fully accomplish. With this brief summary, If you are interested to become a member of the great illuminati then get back to us for more information about joining the illuminati. kindly reply us back on our direct recruitment email only at: infoilluminati@religious.com Please note, Kindly make sure all your response are send directly to the email stated above.

This is my second favorite recruitment offer. The first being when, in the year of our lord two thousand and eighteen (or was it ‘17), I received a phone call from a (purported) CIA recruiter (allegedly) encouraging me to apply for a role in the (recently renamed) Directorate of Operations.

It is periodic acknowledgement like this that leads me to believe I am making the right life choices.

A Machine for Building Muscle

2025-07-04T00:00:00-07:00

Back in December I wrote that I was very happy with the Harambe resistance bands but intended to keep using the X3 bar and plate.

That last part didn’t age well.

In March I bought the Harambe CyberPlate. This was great and lived up to the hype. Encouraged by that, about a month later I bought the bar-previously-known-as-Manhattan and rods and black ropes. This too proved to be a significant quality improvement over my previous equipment. Two months after that I was back for the blue ropes and foam block.

My original Harambe purchase of the bands is, I think, still the most valuable. The reduced length of the bands and the intelligent assortment compared to what I’ve used previously directly contributes to a better, more efficient workout. The other components of the system, when compared to the X3 equivalents, are less about improving efficiency or functionality and more just quality of life improvements.

The rollers on the unfortunately named CyberPlate do make all the movements much smoother. After experiencing it, I find it hard to go back to a plate without rollers. But I do not think the that CyberPlate lets me lift heavier bands, or build more muscle faster, or anything like that. It should increase the service life of the bands, but that’s not much of an argument when one considers the price of bands compared to the price of the plate.

The bar is similar. I appreciate the greater width. I have come to prefer its independent bearings, rather than the X3 bar’s approach of having both sides move in unison. My deadlifting calluses have mostly gone away, despite the fact that I’ve progressed to heavier bands than what I was lifting when I was still using the X3 bar. (Partly this is because I’m using heavy enough bands that most of the time I need to use straps, but mostly I think it is because of the better knurling on the Harambe bar.) But, like the plate, this is more on the order of quality-of-life improvements rather than the Harambe bar being somehow more effective. The one exception is that on some movements – overhead press being the main one – I do notice my abdominal muscles being hit much more than they ever were with the X3 bar. I suspect this is due to the greater width of the Harambe bar and the independent bearings both requiring greater stabilization efforts on my part. I appreciate this. A strong core is important, and I hate doing sit-ups.

The sling system that Harambe uses offers some functional advantages over the hooks of the X3. The ability to change rope lengths and add spacers can help with progressive overload, but I feel like that advantage is pretty minor – especially if you get their orange band, which mostly replaces the contribution of the spacers in helping to progress to heavier bands. (Did I mention that I also ended up buying the orange and black bands at different points? I regularly use all six bands – individually or in some combination – for different movements.) The only area where I really take advantage of the modularity of the slings is when I put on the blue ropes, which allows me to back squat with a doubled band. I like doing back squats, but I do them after front squats. If I could only do front squats, I’d still be happy. So I don’t think the hooks vs sling question is worth spending much time thinking about. Both are fine, slings offer greater modularity, hooks provide a built-in stand, but ultimately it probably just comes down to personal preference.

If I’m home and bored and have a few minutes, I often find myself pulling the Harambe bar and plate out from their home under my desk and doing some exercise for a few minutes (this in addition to my more structured daily workouts with the system, which usually happens in the evening). I never did this impromptu work with the X3. I’m willing to accept that the responsibility for this failure lies more with me than the X3, but I think it also speaks to the difference in the experience of using both systems. When I get on the plate, grip the bar, and start pushing or pulling, it just feels like I am using well-made, top quality, professional equipment. Because I am.

All of these components cost a good deal of money (after my third order I made the mistake of asking ledger for my total spend with Harambe). Yet I don’t find myself regretting any of the purchases, and I think I would happily purchase all of them again (despite recent price increases meaning that most components are now more expensive than what I originally paid). That’s usually a good metric to assess an item’s value. But of course part of the point with a machine like this is that except for the bands, which are ultimately consumable, I should never have to purchase any sort of muscle building equipment again. I’m set for life.

I’ve noticed Harambe start to use the word “luxury” in some of their marketing. While I think that word does not properly apply to what they’re doing – “premium” would be more appropriate in the official lexicon – it implies a basic strategy to differentiate themselves from their competition that I agree with: their product is expensive, it may not complete the task more efficiently than more affordable offerings (except for the bands), but the extra thought and polish that goes into their components do craft a superior user experience, and once you use it everything else will seem less than.

The disadvantage to all this is that my shirts and jackets are all shrinking and I don’t want to replace them.

Stationery of the Jackal

2025-07-03T00:00:00-07:00

My critique of frivolous details in The Day of the Jackal continues.

In the third episode, there’s a scene where our titular assassin is doing some computing and we see his pen in the corner of the frame. It isn’t in focus but is obviously a fountain pen. I immediately lose interest in whatever he’s doing and say to myself “Ah, bella penna.”¹

A few shots later we get a close-up of the pen and notebook. The pen is clearly a Kaweco Sport. So, he could do better, but anytime I see someone use a fountain pen my opinion of them goes up. I can’t identify the notebook, but the paper is grid-lined, looks to be A6 in size, and it doesn’t seem to feather much with his ink. I approve. The nib is probably a Fine based on the size of the writing. Good choice. The ink is a rich blue. Always classy. I’m more of a blue-black man myself, but every now and again I can get down with a little Pilot Iroshizuku Kon-peki or similar. Maybe this Jackal character is all-right.

I judge a man by his stationery.

Notes

↵ The recent Ripley TV show approaches perfection because, unlike The Day of the Jackal, it revels in all the minor details. (Also, that lighting.) One of the things on my aspirational to-do list for the past year or so has been to watch Ripley again and make a super-cut of every time someone says "bella penna". Because I'm weird like that. It is one of my favorite parts of the show. The pen doesn't really matter to the plot at all, yet at the same time it communicates most of what you need to know about the character. And anyone who EDCs a fountain pen fantasizes about others acknowledging it.

Tribulations of the Jackal

2025-07-02T00:00:00-07:00

I’ve begun watching the new The Day of the Jackal TV show. I read the book years ago, and remember enjoying it – though I think Forsyth (like Trevanian) is one of those novelists for whom one’s memory of the books is usually better than the reality of them. I never saw the 70’s film. The only thing I remember from the 90’s film was how satisfying it was to watch Jack Black’s arm get blown off. (The Internet assures me that there was another 121 minutes of this movie, but those 3 minutes are all I remember.) All of which is to say, I went in with middling expectations. But the first episode was better than I expected. I’ve watched the second episode now, and it is as good as the first. Unfortunately, there are plot issues holding the show back.

I have notes.

The show opens with the titular Jackal assassinating some political candidate. The Jackal is shown to be meticulous, competent, and highly skilled. (This excites me because competency porn is my favorite porn genre.) In the aftermath of the assassination everybody else in the show’s world comments on how the shot should have been impossible. This communicates to the audience that the Jackal probably isn’t desperate for work, nor is he a replaceable cog like his fellow gig-workers at Uber and Doordash.

Then we see the Jackal go home to some fancy villa in Spain. Everything about his house, his clothes, his cars communicates to the audience that he is rich.

As he communicates with his existing client and a new speculative client via his not-Tails live distro we see that he has strict rules about how he works and how he interacts with clients.

Yet this new speculative client immediately asks him to break his rules and his response is basically “lol ok let’s go”. Why? It is never explained. He’s rich, successful, and has a well-respected brand. Usually the setup for this sort of plot is “He wants out but the big bad boss is going to kill him unless he does this one last job”. Or, “He wants out but he’s broke and this one last job will earn him enough to retire to a Spanish villa.” But the writers of the show don’t attempt any of that. This guy already has the Spanish villa. They could solve this problem with just a few lines of dialogue and about 30 seconds of screen-time, but instead they just traipse right past this gaping void in the very beginning of their plot.

In the second episode the speculative client requests a meatspace meeting. The Jackal says “That’s not going to happen.” (It’s one of his rules, you know.) To which the client retorts with something like “Then we’ll have to go elsewhere. I expected the Jackal to say “Have a nice day” and hang up. This guy should hold all the cards in the negotiation – he’s supposed to be the best, the client approached him, he’s not struggling to feed himself, he just completed a job that nobody else could do. Instead he agrees to the meeting. It makes no sense. In every interaction he rolls over for the client, giving up all leverage. This is not how successful freelance employment works. How has he lasted this long?

The client wants him to murder some tech-bro CEO because said tech-bro CEO is going to release a piece of software called “River” that promises to make all financial transactions publicly viewable. How? Magic. It is never explained. Somehow this software will just be released, and in the next second all transactions everywhere in the world are going to be in some central, public database, I guess? (I keep expecting some character to say the word “blockchain”, but am pleased to report that this has yet to happen.) This is not how fintech works. River is just the show’s MacGuffin, so it doesn’t really matter, but the writers make the deadly mistake of telling us just enough about it to shatter the fantasy of the story. I find this sort of thing super frustrating. The right way to setup a world-ending MacGuffin is to copy The Rabbit’s Foot from Mission Impossible 3: the only thing we are told is its codename and that it is bad. Nothing else to distract from the plot. (They later fucked this up by trying to explain it in the recent sequels, but, well, you either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.) The writers should have told us that tech-bro CEO is going to release a piece a software that will change the world, and left it at that. Don’t extrapolate when it isn’t necessary.

The client tells the Jackal that the murder has to happen by such-and-such a date, because that is the date the tech-bro has said he is going to release the software. So… killing this CEO guy is going to destroy the software? This is not how software development or deployment works. The date is coming up soon (soon enough that the Jackal scoffs at the deadline but then immediately agrees, because he doesn’t care about his rules and always does whatever the client wants). The tech-bro is shown making the television rounds on some sort of press tour, promoting the imminent release. So we have to assume that the software is already pretty much ready for release. The client is not trying to kill the tech-bro because they want to prevent him from writing the software. They just want to prevent the release. They have yet to explain how killing the CEO will accomplish this. Why not figure out what data center the guy stores his git repos in and destroy that? Nobody knows.

Prior to the meeting in episode 2 that should never have happened, the Jackal quoted the client a fee of $100 million (or maybe Euros or Pounds or Woolongs, I don’t remember). At the beginning of this meeting the client says “We’re still pretty far away on the price.” The Jackal ignores her and requests half now, half on completion. She says no, but she’ll give him $20 million now. To which the Jackal responds, great, he’ll get started as soon as he gets the $20 million. Dude. She has explicitly told you that she is not going to pay your requested fee. She has offered to put down 20% of what you’re asking. You have completed no negotiations about what the remainder of the fee is going to be. And your response is to start on the project anyway? This guy is a terrible business person. The client must be overjoyed at how much of a pushover the Jackal is.

When he first uses his not-Tails live USB flash drive, he does so on a public computer at an internet cafe in Paris. This threw me. I thought the show was supposed to be set in the modern day, not 2003. Are internet cafes really still a thing in Paris? I paused the show to look it up on Google Maps, and apparently they do still exist. Weird, but I can move on. The Jackal then moves on by navigating to his darknet web chat thing and logging in with his username and password. On a public computer. So, not worried about key loggers, I guess? Surveillance cameras in the cafe that capture the keyboard? Why even go through this whole thing with the internet cafe? Just use your laptop from a public wifi network. Later, he does insert the same USB drive into his personal laptop and log into the same chat service. So it isn’t like he is trying to keep all his work stuff off of his personal machine. The whole thing just seems odd, and it’s not like his being at the internet cafe drives the plot in any way. Maybe later in the series they’ll reveal that security cameras in the cafe captured him and this will become relevant to the plot. But even then, they could accomplish the same thing by having him login from his personal machine while sitting at McDonald’s after ordering his Royale with Cheese.

When he finishes with the public computer, he stands up and picks up the snacks that he was munching on and the cups he was drinking out of. I think to myself “Oh, neat, this guy’s tradecraft is so good that he’s going to take this trash with him and dispose of it elsewhere so that he doesn’t leave any DNA at the cafe!” But then he just tosses it in the trash can inside the cafe before leaving. I cried a little inside. What was the point of even writing the trash into the show if not to communicate something about the character with it? I really hope this whole cafe scene comes back later in the series and becomes some sort of linchpin in the good guy’s investigation.

The MI6 lady who is trying to identify the Jackal gets a lead when she figures out that the backpack he is seen carrying is from some sort of small-batch Kickstarter thing that was only sold at two shops in jolly-old-England. So our (anti-)hero, who is shown to be so meticulous in his planning and a master of disguise, is dumb enough to walk around with some couture backpack of which only a couple hundred were ever sold? It strains credulity. I checked, and the first episode aired on 2024-11-07, while Brian Thompson was killed on 2024-12-04 so it wasn’t like this plot point was sloppily shoe-horned in at the last minute to make fun of Peak Design – which was my first thought.

Anyway, I’m enjoying the show. I just need to pause it three or four times an episode to rant about how stupid some minor plot point is. It’s frustrating because all these little unimportant things hold it back from being a good show. I hope they improve the writer’s room for the second season.

Simpson Synthetic

2025-07-01T00:00:00-07:00

I bought a Simpson Commodore X2 badger brush in 2013 and shaved with it for ten years. This replaced the cheaper Vulfix Pure badger brush I mentioned 2008. In 2023 I decided that the Commodore had shed enough hairs and it was time to replace it. I bought the Simpson Trafalgar T2 synthetic brush, mostly just because it was cheap and I thought it would be worth trying for a bit before spending more on another fancy badger brush. I’ve been using that synthetic brush for 24 months now and have no complaints.

Using it is a bit different from using a badger brush. I always start by wetting my brush under a running faucet. With a badger brush, my habit was then to give the brush a few vigorous shakes. That resulted in the correct amount of moisture being left in the hairs to lather the soap. After that amount of shaking, the synthetic brush is practically dry. I had to retrain myself to only give it one or two gentle shakes to remove excess water.

When I circle a badger brush on my soap, I’m just picking up the soap. The lather doesn’t develop until I take the brush to my face. With the synthetic brush, the lather develops when circling the brush on the soap. I then use the brush to paint it on my face. It’s a slightly different action, requiring less pressure, which is better suited to the relatively stiffer hairs of the synthetic brush.

The quick drying nature of the synthetic brush probably makes it nice for travel. Personally I never bother packing a shaving brush. Instead I just use my scouring cloth to lather up when on the road.

Over these past two years I have not noticed any real disadvantages to the synthetic brush. Considering the price difference – I paid $75.39 for the Commodore badger brush (in 2013 dollars) and $27.40 for the Trafalgar synthetic brush (in 2023 dollars) – I’d say the synthetic was a good buy. I’ll stick with it.

You Will Die

2025-06-28T00:00:00-07:00

We are now in a period of crisis not for a specific nation but for humanity, inhabiting a planet that is becoming less and less habitable. A new kind of heartbreak can be felt in The Iliad’s representation of a city in its last days, of triumphs and defeats and struggles and speeches that take place in a city that will soon be burned to the ground, in a landscape that will soon be flooded by all the rivers, in a world where soon, no people will live at all, and there will be no more stories and no more names.

You already know the story. You will die. Everyone you love will also die. You will lose them forever. You will be sad and angry. You will weep. You will bargain. You will make demands. You will beg. You will pray. It will make no difference. Nothing you can do will bring them back. You know this. Your knowing changes nothing. This poem will make you understand this unfathomable truth again and again, as if for the very first time.

Emily Wilson, in the introduction to her excellent translation of The Iliad.

Calibre News

2025-06-27T00:00:00-07:00

I follow local news – news from my city – daily via RSS. For anything wider in scope, I find that weekly is the correct cadence. Anything more frequent is generally a waste of time and not conducive to living life. I get my non-local news via Calibre News.

Calibre ships with a large number of recipes, which are Python modules that tell it how to download content from websites. (One can create their own recipes, but I have not bothered to do so.) When a recipe is run, Calibre fetches all content and creates a nicely formatted EPUB. Often the recipe is able to bypass paywalls, making this the best way to freely read online news.

The news functionality has a scheduler which can be used to fetch content from selected recipes in an automated and periodic fashion. It can take some experimentation to figure out what schedule makes sense for which source, as there is not any sort of duplication controls. If the source only posts updates weekly, but you have Calibre scheduled to run the recipe daily, you will end up with 7 identical EPUBs at the end of the week.

Recipes can also be executed via the command line by passing a recipe name and output filename to ebook-convert. This allows you to setup your own scheduler using cron or systemd timers.

$ ebook-convert "The Economist.recipe" .epub

Calibre includes configurable controls for how many issues of a news source you want to store. You can tell it to only keep up to 3 issues, or keep all issues up to 30 days old, for instance.

Once the EPUB is in the library, Calibre takes care of automatically pushing it to connected devices and deleting old files.

The author on these files is set to calibre, causing them to be stored within the library in a calibre/ directory. My library is stored as a git-annex, but unlike all the actual books in my library, I consider these downloads to be ephemeral. I do not want them tracked by git, or pushed to my special remotes. I achieve this by adding calibre/ to my .gitignore file.

Each of the files is tagged with news, so I can easily exclude them from my book searches, or filter the library for only them.

The two recipes I keep scheduled are those for The Economist and Foreign Affairs. The Economist is scheduled for every Friday. Foreign Affairs is scheduled for every 60 days. What this means in practice is that I open Calibre every Friday morning and plug in my eReader. Within a few minutes Calibre will download my weekly news from The Economist, and Foreign Affairs every other month, and sync them to the device. I read those EPUBs over the next week.

Previously I also scheduled downloads for The Diplomat, but I found that The Economist’s Asia coverage was adequate enough for my needs. I’ve also used Calibre to download The Atlantic and Harper’s, but these days I rarely find myself in the mood for long-form articles – I’d rather spend that time reading a book. Foreign Affairs is the exception here, but it is a worthy one. Between the one and the other I am mostly consuming facts, which I gather is not the case for many people.

Excepting the city news in my RSS reader, my news consumption outside of these EPUBs is almost zero. This has been working well for me. I judge my success by the number of memes I do not understand.