Better Payments with Privacy.com
Privacy.com is an excellent service with a terrible name. They provide merchant-locked virtual debit cards. I’ve been using them for about three years. Around 90% of my online transactions go through them (the other 10%-ish is PayPal).
When one of their card numbers is first used, it becomes locked to that merchant. The card will reject transactions from anyone else. This immediately eliminates the problem of stolen card numbers. If a random ecommerce website leaks my card details, I don’t care, because nobody other than the original merchant can place a charge on the card.
When generating cards, Privacy.com also allows you to set dollar limits, either in total or for a period of time. This eliminates the problem of unreliable subscription services. For example, the card tied to my Amazon Web Services account has a monthly usage limit slightly higher than my average monthly bill. If AWS tries to double my bill one month, the transaction will be rejected.
Cards can also be paused. While I use the periodic dollar limit feature for things like subscription services with regular payments, other cards in my Privacy.com account stay paused when not in use. A paused card rejects all new transactions. Before making a purchase on a website, I login to the Privacy.com website and unpause the associated card. I then make the purchase as usual. Placing an order usually results in the merchant immediately placing an authorization on the card for the purchase amount. Existing authorizations can still be captured on a paused card, so at this point I can switch back to my Privacy.com tab and re-pause the card, preventing the merchant from taking any more money than the agreed upon authorization.
Cards can also be closed. Effectively this is the same as pausing a card, except that it is permanent. This is useful for signing up for free trials that still require a method of payment. When the trial is up, if you choose to not continue using the service, inform the provider and simply close the card.
Privacy.com offers software you can install on your telephone. I’ve never used it. I don’t trust my phone enough for it to touch money in any way. They also offer browser extensions, which I also have never used. Their website works great, and I see no need for locally installed software of any sort.
Over my few years of using Privacy.com, I’ve never had a problem with their service. I’ve never had to contact their customer support, so I have no idea how that works. I’ve had merchants issue refunds to my Privacy.com cards half a dozen or so times, and those have always come through and landed in my bank account without drama (even when the original charge was on a card that at the time of refund was paused or closed.
Last year, Swift Silent Deadly posted an in-depth overview of Privacy.com. This provides a good overview of the service. What he wrote matches my experience, with one glaring exception. He mentions giving Privacy.com access to your bank account. I don’t know if he is referencing some shady Plaid bullshit or if he simply means providing them with routing and account numbers and going through ACH. I did neither. When I signed up, Privacy.com allowed me to add my real bank debit card as a funding source. That is the only way Privacy.com has to push or pull funds from me. If they ever become untrustworthy, I can just cancel my real debit card, and Privacy.com will loose all access to my money.
The debit card that I use for this is tied to the checking account that I previously used only for PayPal. This provides an additional layer of defense, in that there isn’t much money hanging around in that account for someone to steal. I usually keep around $100 in it for incidental purchases, and transfer more in from my real accounts when I plan to make a larger purchase.
Privacy.com has free and paid tiers. I am on the free tier. Apparently it has some limitations in terms of number of cards generated per month and total monthly spend. I have never run into these limitations so I have no idea what they are. They claim that they make enough money on us low-volume free tier users by collecting the transaction fees that merchants pay to process debit cards. I would be very unhappy to return to participating in the electronic commerce market without a service like this, so they would probably have a pretty easy time convincing me to move to a paid plan if they ever decided to eliminate the free tier.
I’ve heard some banks offer virtual card numbers somewhat similar to Privacy.com, but perhaps without the merchant-locking and spend limits. While I refer to my “bank” accounts, my accounts are actually with credit unions. Credit unions tend not to be at the forefront of technology, so I need a third-party to provide this functionality.
Privacy.com says that they offer merchant masking to their paying customers. This means that transactions show up in your bank account as “Privacy.com” instead of including the name of the merchant. I suspect this may be where their business name comes from. I suppose that is great if you have a joint bank account and want to hide your Porn Hub subscription from your spouse. But it is not a problem I have, so I maintain that their name is dumb and has nothing to do with their excellent service. If anything they reduce my privacy, since they are now an additional party involved in all of my online purchases. But I’m good with that trade-off.
A Better Phone Mount
When I purchased my first smart phone in 2013, I was motivated primarily by the promise of using Open Street Map for bicycle navigation. This does not require, but is greatly assisted by, a mounting system of some sort. I’ve tried a few over the years. Since 2015 I’ve used the Aduro U-Grip Plus Universal Bike Mount, which I think is an excellent design. It uses a ball and socket to provide complete adjustability. It secures the phone with a spring-loaded cradle and silicon band. Between the two, there’s no way the phone is falling out, unless the mount breaks. Unfortunately the whole thing is cheaply made of plastic. Earlier this month, mine finally broke.
After seven years, I feel I got my money’s worth out of the Aduro U-Grip, but when a tool like this fails I want to replace it with something better. Purchasing another of the same just resets the countdown to the next failure. Unfortunately, the bicycle phone mount market seems to be flooded with shit. Either they provide limited adjustability, or they require a special phone case. I have no interest in either. I was disappointed, and about to just order another Aduro U-Grip, until I happened upon Tackform. Their Enduro Mount was advertised for motorcycles, but I figured it ought to work on a real bike.
Tackform’s offering is similar in concept to Aduro’s, with a ball and socket providing complete adjustability, and phone security provided by a spring-loaded cradle and silicon band. But it raises durability to the extreme. I’ve had mine for just a few days. I am impressed.
The only plastic component is the wingnut used to lock the position of the cradle. Everything else is metal. The spring that operates the cradle is no joke. It is capable of operating as an improvised finger guillotine. Yet it is quick and easy to operate one-handed. Tackform includes a silicon band for further security, but in the packaging material they say that you really don’t need it. I believe they are correct. When it is installed in the cradle, I can lift the bike with the phone. The phone doesn’t move at all. It is difficult to imagine a scenario where the phone would escape.
The top of the cradle has a lip to prevent the phone from being pulled out straight up. The sides and bottom of the cradle are lined with a thin rubber to provide some protection to the phone. The outer edges of the cradle are quite sharp, which makes me somewhat nervous about a crash. I have no doubt that the mount would come through, and that the phone would still be secured in it, but my face might not fare so well if it comes into contact with the cradle. But, hey, that’s what eye pro is for.
The primary disadvantage to the Tackform Enduro is that the arm which connects the cradle to the bar mount is tightened with a single wingnut. To rotate the cradle from portrait to landscape mode, you have to loosen this wingnut, which also loosens the connection to the bar mount. So while the ball and socket connection gives you complete freedom to position the phone as you like, it’s the sort of thing where you need to figure out what position you want and then tighten the wingnut to lock it in. You won’t leave the wingnut loose enough to allow for adjustments while riding. With the Aduro U-Grip, the socket is part of the cradle, the ball is part of the bar mount, and I was always able to leave the nut which secures the two just loose enough that I could make minor in-flight positioning adjustments without compromising the security of the system. In practice, I have yet to find this limitation with the Tackform to be something I really care about. But if you want to be able to rotate between portrait and landscape modes without stopping and using two hands, look elsewhere.
The other disadvantage that some riders will identify is weight. I didn’t weigh the components, but what you’re dealing with here is basically just a chunk of aluminum. I imagine the whole system is somewhere around 6 oz, which is significantly more than the plastic competitors. If you have much spandex in your wardrobe, you won’t be happy with Tackform. But my bike is carefully built for what I see as the ideal compromise between performance and durability, and the Tackform mount makes the cut.
Beyond the durability of the system, what endures me to Tackform is that their products really are systems. They are not just selling a few application-specific packages, but have whole series of components. It’s like a grown-up Lego set. I appreciate knowing that I could replace an individual component, or buy just the piece I need to expand the mount’s applicability to different vehicles or environments.
None of Tackform’s products are cheap, but they claim that their products are designed to last a lifetime. After the first 100 miles on this mount, I believe that statement will prove accurate. I suspect that the slab-format pocket terminal will be phased out and become irrelevant well before the Tackform Enduro will fail.
The mount is manufactured in the country of Taiwan, so get yours before China expands its beachfront property.
How I Flick My Ding-Ding
I use to run my bell on the center top of my handlebars, near the stem. This is a typical bell position, but it requires moving a hand off of the brifters to access it. Situations where one needs a bell are often situations where one also wants to be ready to brake or shift.
A couple years ago, I saw someone position their bell on the hook of the drops. I thought that was a great idea and promptly copied it. The positioning is ideal. It allows me to keep my hands on the hoods and actuate the trigger of the bell with my pinky, while the rest of my fingers interact with the brifters as needed. It is high enough in the hook that it does not interfere with my hand placement while riding in the drops, though it does require releasing the hold on the bar to actuate it from down there. But that is still a smaller movement than reaching from the drop to the center top of the bars. I spend about 90% of my time on the ramps and hoods, so that is the interface I optimize for.
I strongly recommend setting up your cockpit such that you can flick your ding-ding without sacrificing the drive controls.
USB Type-C Multi-Cables
I started carrying the Anker PowerLine II 3-in-1 Cable in the latest iteration of my Electronic Support Package a couple years ago. It has a USB Type-A connector on one end, Micro USB on the other, with a USB Type-C and Apple Lightning adapter that pop on to the Micro USB connector. It makes for a nice little multi-cable to charge all my gadgets and transfer small bits of data around.
As I began to acquire more devices that supported USB Type-C, I found that I desired a multi-cable that was Type-C native. A quick survey of the market offered some options, but nothing that struck my fancy. However, during that search I happened to discover that Cozy (the same company that makes those USB Type-A covers I use on my bike lights) offered something they called LightningCozy which would allow me to put together my own multi-cables. So that’s what I did.
I have one model built around the Cable Matters USB-C Cable, 60 watt, 3.3 ft. On one end it has a Satechi Type-A to Type-C Adapter attached via a LightningCozy. On the other end it has a JXMOX USB C to Micro USB Adapter attached via another LightningCozy. It is bundled with a Ringke Silicon Cable Tie.
This creates the perfect package for my needs. I can use it to charge all my USB-chargeable things, including the Thinkpad X270. (I have no Apple devices in my life, so I don’t need the Apple Lightning adapter, but could easily add that if I find the need.) The cable doesn’t provide the fastest possible data transfer, but it is more svelte than a fast data cable, and is perfectly acceptable for my incidental data use. It doesn’t do video, but as of yet I have no USB Type-C monitors in my life, so I don’t care. One of these multi-cables is my EDC in the Electronic Support Package.
My second model of multi-cable is built around the Cable Matters USB-C Cable, 100 watt, 6.6 ft. On one end it has a Base Sailor USB C Female to USB Male Adapter attached via a LightningCozy. On the other end it has the same JXMOX adapter as the previous cable, attached via a LightningCozy. It also has a USB-C to Lenovo Slim Tip power adapter I bought a few years ago on AliExpress, attached via electrical tape and a piece of Type 1 Paracord. The cable is bundled with another Ringke Silicon Cable Tie.
I keep this second model in my laptop kit, along with a HyperJuice 66W GaN USB-C Charger. (I also have a Satechi 72W Type-C PD Car Charger I can throw into the kit if I’m going on a trip and think I might be spending a while in a car.) I don’t carry this kit unless I’m also carrying my laptop. This cable allows me to power either of my Thinkpads, or anything else USB-compatible, and gives me more reach than the short EDC cable. Both the X260 and X270 only want 45 watts, so the 100 watt cable is overkill, but it is occasionally useful to have the capacity to deliver more juice to other devices. As with the previous cable, this one doesn’t transfer data at blazing speeds, nor does it do video. I have no need of those capabilities, so I stick with thinner cables.
Link Log 2022-02-13
Testing Phone-Sized Faraday Bags
How Miami became the most important city in America
Taiwan: how the ‘porcupine doctrine’ might help deter armed conflict with China
Microgreens for Human Nutrition in Spaceflight
Fonts in Use: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Meditation: Teachers and Technology
Crypto[currency] Games: Report from hell
OIML-M1 Scale Calibration
Back in 2017 one of the ladies at Red Blossom Tea chastised me for not using a tea scale. I went home and ordered an American Weigh Scales SC-2kg, which measures up to 2kg with 0.1g resolution. It seemed adequate for the task, and compact enough that I wouldn’t mind it taking up a little room in a drawer if I ended up not using it frequently.
At the start of 2020 I decided to become an adult and begin to measure all solid kitchen ingredients by weight instead of volume, so the SC-2kg began to see much more frequent use.
That went along swimmingly for about a year, until the beginning of 2021 when I became curious about the accuracy of the scale. Nothing in particular prompted this curiosity. I just enjoy knowing that the tools in my life are both precise and accurate. As helpfully explained by LabBalances, there are a number of different scale calibration systems in the world. All of it is overkill for use in my personal kitchen, but I decided to look into the OIML-M1 class from the International Organization of Legal Metrology.
The calibration procedure for the SC-2kg requires 1kg and 2kg weights. I found a good deal on a set of 2kg, 1kg, 20g and 10g OIML-M1 certified weights on eBay. According to OIML-M1, a 1kg calibration weight must be accurate within 50mg. A 2kg calibration weight must be within 100mg. That’d get me a pretty accurate bowl of rice.
When I received the weights I found that the SC-2kg reported the correct measurement for all 4 calibration weights. I also tried the calibration weights on my MyWeigh UltraShip Ultra-35, which is the scale I’ve had kicking around since 2009 for measuring backpacking gear. It only claims to have 2g resolution up to 1kg, and 5g resolution up to 16 kilograms. I found it to be accurate within its claimed resolution.
So all of this was for naught. Both of my scales were already accurate and not in need of calibration. But I really enjoy having these OIML calibration weights and knowing that my measurements conform to the standards of the universe.
I hang my strop on my fridge with a magnetic hook.
All of my sharpening supplies live in a box in a closet. Out of sight, out of mind. Once I moved the strop to a place where I see it every day, I began to use it much more often – both for kitchen knives and pocket knives. Frequent stropping keeps the knives in better shape, and reduces the frequency with which they need to be sharpened.
My current strop solution is a rubberized cork strop coated with boron carbide and chromium oxide, as explained by Bernal Cutlery.