2020-01-10

The Casio Pro Trek PRW-3000-1A

I’ve worn the Casio Pro Trek PRW-3000-1A for the past 1,746 consecutive days. This is probably the longest I’ve worn any watch that doesn’t say “G-Shock” on it.

The Pro Trek performs all the basic watch functions you’d expect: it tells time, it provides the current date and day of week, it has a stopwatch, and it has a countdown timer. It supports a second timezone, which I usually keep set to UTC for quick reference but is useful if I’m briefly passing through a different region. It provides sunrise and sunset times for current, past and future dates. These are not exact, but tend to be within 20 minutes of reality, which is close enough for planning purposes. It has four alarms, which I never use.

Beyond those basic functions, the PRW-3000-1A has two characteristics that differentiate it from other timepieces. First, it is both solar and atomic: the battery never needs to be changed, and the time is always accurate. (Eventually, I’m sure, the battery will no longer charge itself, but that doesn’t seem to be imminent.)

The second characteristic is that it is an ABC watch, which means it provides an altimeter, barometer, and compass. Of these three features, the compass is the most useful. It works great for identifying the cardinal directions when you get turned around. It can also store bearings in memory, but using something other than a real compass for actual navigation strikes me as silly. The watch can be configured with declination, but I always leave this off so that the compass points to magnetic north. I apply this strategy to all compasses and GPS receivers, ensuring that they always agree.

The barometer is neat, but not especially useful. I have not found the current atmospheric pressure to be advantageous information. The watch can be told to monitor the barometric pressure over a period, and then alert the user if it sees a rise or fall in pressure, which would indicate a change in weather (very roughly: a rising barometer is good, falling is bad). This is more useful than knowing only the current value, but it only works when altitude remains constant.

The barometer screen also displays a thermometer, but because the watch is worn next to skin I find that this reading is not an accurate representation of ambient air temperature.

The altimeter mode is more useful. The reading is based on barometric pressure. The watch can either convert the barometer readings to altitude based on its stored values from the International Civil Aviation Organization’s International Standard Atmosphere, or it can calculate altitude based on a provided reference value. With the latter option, you tell the watch the current altitude (based on a map reading, survey marker, etc) and the watch then uses changes in pressure to calculate the difference as you ascend or descend. This is how I use the altimeter, and I find the results accurate enough for my purposes (which tend to be “rough navigation”).

The watch features a trip recording mode, where it will periodically record altitude readings and then report back with your maximum altitude, minimum altitude, total ascent, and total descent. I’ve never used this.

I’ve been using the same nylon band that I hacked together 4 years ago. It works great. I repaired it once with my expedition sewing kit.

The watch remains in excellent condition. The bezel is scratched, but that has no practical impact on its function. The face itself has managed to resist all scratching.

The buttons are more exposed than a G-Shock, and they will sometimes activate themselves if I’m doing something like pulling my wrist through a tight cuff. These accidental discharges happen rarely and are only a minor annoyance, but I do wish the Pro Trek was available with the thicker bumper of the G-Shock. (Casio does offer ABC G-Shocks, such as the Rangeman GW9400-1B. I’ve not looked closely at these, but they are probably worthy of consideration.)

Kikuo Ibe’s original G-Shock DW-5000 is the watch against which every other timepiece should be judged. Today I would appreciate the addition of solar atomic functionality, which is available in derivatives such as the G-Shock GWM5610. I purchased the PRW-3000-1A in 2015 for $200, which is a little over twice the common sale price of the G-Shock. I think this has been worth it for the added functionality. Unfortunately the PRW-3000-1A is no longer available. The current equivalent of it seems to be the PRW-3100Y-1. Casio’s list price for this model is $320, which is more than I think the watch is worth. If my watch was lost, I would happily purchase the newer model (or an ABC G-Shock) for $200. If they wanted more than that, I’d likely revert to the solar atomic G-Shock GWM5610 for $80-$100.

2020-01-09

media

Rams

In 2018 I went to the San Francisco premier of Rams at The Castro Theatre.

I’d previously seen the other documentaries made by Gary Hustwist, but had not found them to be especially relevant to my interests. Rams, however, I greatly enjoyed. On the whole I think that German industrial design is best industrial design, both functionally and aesthetically. I was familiar with many of the designs of Deiter Rams that the documentary highlights, but seeing all the objects together in Rams’ home – not as a museum display, but as practical tools for living – really drives home his skill and vision.

I’d been wanting to watch the film again for a while. Last month I decided to purchase it on Vimeo. I’d never done this before, and was nervous of the experience. Vimeo claims to provide a DRM-free download, but I was concerned that their definition of “download” may be different from mine, or that they would attempt to serve it through some some platform-specific crapware. Fortunately this was not the case. After completing the purchase, it was simple to navigate to the download link, which was a straightforward URL to a DRM-free 1920x1080 MP4 file. Purchasing and downloading the video on Vimeo was just as simple as purchasing and downloading music on Bandcamp, which is the standard against which I judge all other digital media distributors (it is a low bar, but many seem to fail).

2020-01-08

micro, food, quote

The cow collapse is nigh.

The Guardian reports on the end of food and the cowllapse:

We are on the cusp of the biggest economic transformation, of any kind, for 200 years. While arguments rage about plant- versus meat-based diets, new technologies will soon make them irrelevant. Before long, most of our food will come neither from animals nor plants, but from unicellular life. After 12,000 years of feeding humankind, all farming except fruit and veg production is likely to be replaced by ferming: brewing microbes through precision fermentation. This means multiplying particular micro-organisms, to produce particular products, in factories.

RethinkX envisages an extremely rapid “death spiral” in the livestock industry. Only a few components, such as the milk proteins casein and whey, need to be produced through fermentation for profit margins across an entire sector to collapse. Dairy farming in the United States, it claims, will be “all but bankrupt by 2030”. It believes that the American beef industry’s revenues will fall by 90% by 2035.

Story via John Ellis. Cinemagraph via Overhead Compartment.

2020-01-07

bicycle, ablution

Cleaning Brakes

The same spray bottle of isopropyl alcohol used to clean my human interface devices is also used to clean the brake pads and braking surface on my bike.

Soap, degreasers, and similar cleaners are best avoided on these components. They can leave residue that decrease braking performance and causes squealing (thus diminishing the all important bike ninja factor). Spraying the brake pad with isopropyl alcohol and wiping it off with a clean rag is usually all that’s needed. Sometimes I’ll hit the pads with a Scotch-Brite Scour Pad after spraying them.

The braking surface on the rims is cleaned the same way: spray with alcohol, wipe with rag. Occasionally, if the wheels are especially dirty, I will break out the big guns in the form of my all-purpose cleaner. Before spraying the rim with this I remove the wheel from the bike because I don’t want to get the cleaner on my brake pads. After spraying the rim with the cleaner, I wipe it down with a clean rag. Finally any residue from the cleaner needs to be removed, which is accomplished by spraying the rim with isopropyl alcohol, and wiping it down again. Sometimes it takes a second cycle of alcohol-and-wipe to eliminate squealing.

2020-01-06

ablution

Cleaning Human Interface Devices

Human interface devices must be cleaned frequently to prevent them from becoming petri dishes that will breed our eventual doom. I use isopropyl alcohol to clean my keyboard, pointing device, and the body of my laptop. This removes grease and oil, making the device feel clean. More importantly, it disinfects.

I keep the alcohol in a recycled 2 oz spray bottle. To clean, I spray the device directly and then wipe it off with a microfiber cloth. Spraying a cleaning solution directly onto any electronics is generally frowned upon, but I began cleaning things using this method 14 years ago and I’ve yet to experience any problems.

I buy the alcohol in 70% concentration, which is commonly available at any drugstore and apparently the best for disinfection:

The presence of water is a crucial factor in destroying or inhibiting the growth of pathogenic microorganisms with isopropyl alcohol. Water acts as a catalyst and plays a key role in denaturing the proteins of vegetative cell membranes. 70% IPA solutions penetrate the cell wall more completely which permeates the entire cell, coagulates all proteins, and therefore the microorganism dies. Extra water content slows evaporation, therefore increasing surface contact time and enhancing effectiveness. Isopropyl alcohol concentrations over 91% coagulate proteins instantly. Consequently, a protective layer is created which protects other proteins from further coagulation.

Solutions > 91% IPA may kill some bacteria, but require longer contact times for disinfection, and enable spores to lie in a dormant state without being killed. A 50% isopropyl alcohol solution kills Staphylococcus Aureus in less than 10 seconds (pg. 238), yet a 90% solution with a contact time of over two hours is ineffective.

A higher concentration is probably more appropriate if cleaning a circuit board directly, but for enclosed electronics like keyboards, trackballs, trackpads, and laptop bodies, I’ve never had the 30% water cause any problems.

I’ve tried using ROR to clean keyboards. It results in a keyboard that feels clean, but it is more expensive than isopropyl alcohol, and doesn’t disinfect. I prefer to reserve the ROR for optical surfaces.

Prior to the spray, I’ll sometimes use a micro vacuum attachment to pick up lint, crumbs, and the like. Stubborn dust sometimes require a gas duster, but I find them mostly unnecessary. (I once tried a DataVac. It wasn’t worth the cost to buy it or the space to store it.)

2020-01-05

micro, gear, bicycle

I added a bottle cage to my rear rack.

A Cleaveland Mountaineering Fork Clamp Mount allows me to mount a King Cage to my old Tubus Vega rack, providing another option for carrying water. I’ve wanted something like this since I saw Logan’s Vega modification on bikepacking.com. Cleaveland’s mounts makes it easy.

I use Norma Torro Worm Drive Hose Clamps to attach the mount. These German made clamps are far superior to the Chinese hose clamps frequently found in hardware stores. The 9mm wide, 8-16mm diameter clamps are the right size for this job.

2020-01-04

water, gear

Sawyer Squeeze Filter Adapters

The Sawyer Squeeze water filter can attach directly to the threading on common disposable bottles. For other bottles you can aim the output freehand, or attach half of a Sawyer Hydration In-Line Adapter to a piece of hose and let that drip into your bottle. I prefer a closed system, both so that no debris fall into my reservoir while it is being filled, and so that if the reservoir is accidentally knocked over I don’t lose all the clean water. There are a number of adapters that can aid in this.

Previously I mentioned my hacked together solution for attaching a Sawyer filter to an MSR Dromlite bag. The Dromlite lid is 63mm in diameter and uses the same threading that is present on the majority of wide mouthed bottles, so I can use this adapter to attach the Sawyer Squeeze directly to a wide array of bottles: Nalgene wide mouth, Klean Kanteen wide mouth, Hydro Flask wide mouth, CamelBak Podium, and reservoirs like the HydraPak Expedition or bladders like the Source WXP.

This adapter – including the Dromlite cap – weighs 40 grams (1.4 oz). 18 grams (0.6 oz) of that is the Dromlite lid, so if I’m already packing a Dromlite the adapter only adds 22 grams (0.8 oz) to my load.

Last autumn I bought a Platypus GravityWorks Universal Bottle Adapter. This consists of an inner lid with nipple, and outer lid ring, and a protective cover for the clean side of the lids. To integrate this adapter with the Sawyer Squeeze, I cut a short length of hose. One end I shoved over the nipple of the GravityWorks Universal Bottle Adapter. The other end I attached to one part of another Sawyer Hydration In-Line Adapter.

This adapter – including the same length of hose as the Dromlite system, and both caps, and the protective cover – weighs 70 grams (2.5 oz). 20 grams (0.7 oz) of that is the protective cover, which I’m not sure is really necessary.

The inner lid of the GravityWorks adapter is tapered so that it can fit into a range of narrow mouth bottles. The Sawyer Squeeze is already threaded to attach directly to common disposable bottles, but this adapter also allows me to get a seal with the Nalgene Oasis canteen, the smaller part of the humangear capCAP, the Hydrapak Stow, Vitaminwater bottles, or Vapur bottles.

When the inner lid is attached to the outer lid ring, the adapter can then attach to the standard 63mm wide mouth bottle threading, giving me all the same capability I have with my modified Dromlite adapter. But the outer lid ring can also attach to bottles with narrower mouths. Specifically, it works great with Klean Kanteen classic bottles, HydraPak Seeker, Nalgene “Wide Mouth” 16oz HDPE (which has a narrower, 53mm “wide mouth”), and with my Zojirushi SM-SA48.

I also have a Jetflow 63mm adapter. This takes the standard 63mm wide mouth bottle threading and steps it down to the narrow threading used by the Sawyer filter and most disposable bottles. You can then attach the filter directly to the bottle lid rather than going through a hose like my other two adapters.

The Jetflow adapter is neat because you can attach a bottle cap from a typical disposable bottle to the smaller end and then use it as your normal water bottle lid. It turns the whole contraption into something like a humangear capCAP. The Jetflow adapter weighs 18 grams (0.6 oz). Add a lid from a disposable water bottle and the total weight is 20 grams (0.7 oz).

2019-12-29

micro, books

The best place to spend a rainy day reading in San Francisco is the UCSF Kalmanovitz Library on Parnassus.

The library is open to the public. You want the Lange Room at the back of the fifth floor. The Lange Room has half a dozen or so comfortable leather chairs, and large windows looking north across Golden Gate Park and the Presidio to the spires of the Golden Gate Bridge. If it was clear, you’d see the Marin Headlands, but if it was clear you’d be reading outside. The room is almost always empty.

It provides all the ingredients necessary for taking full advantage of a rainy day: a comfortable chair, plentiful natural light, good views, a book, and an environment that discourages human interaction.