My partner and I are headed on another bikepacking trip soon and once again we’re reminded that the bike industry has issues catering to women and smaller persons. My partner is 158 cm tall (5' 2") and of a slender build.

Two years ago it was a mess trying to find a gravel bike that fit her and that didn’t have a completely compromised geometry and handling. Out of all the bikes in the market, only roughly 6 models were even worth considering¹ and even on those the componentry was sometimes ill-conceived with bars that are too wide, brifters too large, really long cranks (think 170 mm), two instances where the seat post was too long to allow for any kind of proper seat height, and just strange saddles.

This time around she was trying to find a hip bag with

• decent usable volume,
• proper waterproofing,
• an outside attachment point for a bottle or a rain jacket,
• and optionally: the ability to attach it to the handlebars of the bicycle.

We’ve scoured the web to find something and in the end ordered a Chrome Doubletrack Bike Bar Bag (5 l, already discontinued) and a Restrap Utility Hip Pack (6 l). Both bags are well-made (the Restrap definitely taking the cake, though), check all the boxes of features she was looking for … and both do not fit her at all.

On the Chrome bag the strap is way too long, making it impossible to cinch it down around her hip (the waist is completely out of question). If she wanted to use that one, she’d have to modify the strap and shorten it by about 20 cm.

The Restrap can be cinched down to fit her hips at least but the way the straps attach to the body leave the top half of it always dangling and rocking, creating discomfort and instability. Oh and the padding of the hip belt is very oddly cut so it digs into her hips.

The search continues and my hunch is that she’ll have to work with the people from Wizard Works in the UK or someone else for something custom and expensive.

I purchased the frame set in mid-April, after realising that I had an itch to try something closer to a road bike. Something stiffer, faster, and built for skinnier tyres than my Veloheld Icon.X titanium gravel bike that I had purchased only in October 2022.

It was a bit of a search to find a titanium bike that had moderate clearance, proper rack and fender mounts, wasn’t built with some oddly shaped, brand specific fork, and something that I found pleasing to the eye but the Yukon Disc audax bike fit the bill, at least on paper.

The frame set arrived quickly enough but I had to have the fork swapped because the dropouts were badly finished to the point where I wouldn’t have trusted them on anything but smooth road surfaces.
Moving almost all of the components from the Veloheld to the Van Nicholas was simple but time-consuming and I do now get why bike mechanics dislike internal cable routing.

At this point I’ve done 750+ km on the bike and I’m very happy with it. The frame set is stiff enough to lend itself to fast road rides, it accelerates quickly, and the steering is towards the more direct side between the Veloheld Icon.X and the full-on 2004 Litespeed Tuscany road bike that I’ve sold a couple of years back. The geometry is bit more upright and comfortable for longer rides (especially combined with some carbon Ritchey handlebars).

Right now I have a pair of WTB Exposure 30 tyres on it, which plump up to 32 mm on the DT Swiss GRC1600 wheels (hookless with 24.5 mm inner width) and these tyres are really versatile. Great for fast, dry road rides and with a little less pressure they work well enough on mild gravel, too.

So far going for an „all road“ bike seems to have been exactly what I was looking for. I don’t plan on tackling the kinds of rides with it that I have my XC mountain bike for but I’m also not limited to planning routes in Komoot locked in to the „road bike“ category; „bike“ works perfectly fine and I know it won’t throw anything at me that I can’t handle on this bike with slick tyres.

The frame and fork can take up to a 35 mm wide rubber and I’ve already done a couple of proper gravel rides using DT Swiss CR1600 wheels shod with Schwalbe X-One 33 mm tubeless tyres. Now that was a bunch of fun and it’s the setup I plan on using for this year’s Gravel Rallye Rhine Valley.

For many cyclists n+1 is a reality and I don’t want to claim to be an exception – my stupid brain is already thinking of what fun thing to do with the Veloheld frame set … maybe a flat bar gravel bike? I can honestly say that I’m enjoying this bike more than I would’ve thought possible and something really groundbreaking would have to come along to get me to even think of replacing it.

Late in summer of 2021 I stumbled across a 1996 Trek MultiTrack in almost mint condition on a classifieds site. The seller was running a small business on the side, finding really nice, old bikes in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, cleaning them, repairing what needs repairing and reselling them at a decent mark-up.

The frame is aluminium made for Trek by Easton and welded in the USA. The fork is a CroMo fork with full-width reinforced rack eyelets. Both painted in a beautiful metallic bordeaux red. All original parts were from Trek’s in-house accessory brand (before Bontrager) and the groupset was full Shimano STX RC (including the wheels).

I immediately fell in love with this bike and after I picked it up from the seller at Lake Constance, it was fitted with a pair of SKS Bluemels Long fenders and a period-appropriate rear rack.

After riding it happily for a few months, I made some changes to my stable of bikes and with some inspiration from The Radavist and Bikepacking.com—typical cyclist, I know—I got it into my head that I could turn this into a retro mod that would be appropriate not only for really quick runs to the supermarket but also for day rides when I don’t need one of my more performance-oriented bikes. I checked what I had laying around in terms of componentry, made a list of stuff I’d need and got searching.
I have to admit that it did feel like sacrilege swapping all of those perfectly good old components but I’m very happy with the result (and I’m not giving them away, so if I ever decide to sell the bike again, I’ll likely install them again).

List of changes:

• 680 mm wide (25.4 mm clamp diametre) Reserve handlebars (new, stripped the logos)
• Higher stem (bought used)
• Spurcycle bell, black (new – none of my bikes feels complete without one)
• SRAM GX Eagle group + NX Eagle HG cassette (bought used)
• Rotor Aldhu cranks + Rotor oval 34t chainring (bought used and got it surprisingly cheap)
• Magura HS33 hydro rim brakes (new)
• Specialized Pizza Rack (bought used)
• DT Swiss rims (32 spokes, 19 mm internal width) with Shimano XT hubs front and rear (bought used, almost mint condition and got them for a really good price)
• Specialized Pathfinder Pro 700×38c (used) on Tubolito tubes (also used)

The bike rides really well and with the very low gearing, lugging the doggy trailer up one of many hills in the area is quite doable. The rims are excellent and braking performance with the HS33 is incredible.

With WWDC coming, I was about to write another post clamouring, pleading, even begging for a macOS tablet or iPadOS becoming less of a limiting factor for the applications it runs. I like macOS and iPadOS mostly and the app ecosystem for Apple’s operating systems is hard to beat. Yet not a day goes by that I don’t wish I could perform certain tasks on my iPad Pro that I can do on my MacBook Pro, or interact with content on my MacBook Pro’s screen by touching it, or just grabbing the disply to read something in portrait mode.

Instead of writing that article again, I finally broke down and ordered a ThinkPad X12 Detachable.

I hesitated taking the plunge because

• the hardware is well over a year old already,
• the Microsoft Surface Pro 8 exists and is better in many ways (higher-resolution display, better colour reproduction, two Thunderbolt 4 ports) and
• devices of this class with Intel’s new Alder Lake architecture are right around the corner.

That’s always the issue, though, right? Something new and better is always around the corner. In the end, I decided to go for it because

• I found a demonstration unit in supposedly “as good as new” condition for a decent price with a lot of warranty still in place,
• I’ve always had a soft spot for the ThinkPad design language,
• the display is going to be good enough for my use (as good as the iPad Pro display in terms of colour reproduction),
• it has LTE built-in,
• and I’m definitely going to enjoy the keyboard.

It’s going to be interesting finding Windows alternatives to my favourite and most-used applications from both macOS and iPadOS.

Seit dem 1. Januar 2022 gelten in Deutschland neue gesetzliche Vorschriften hinsichtlich der Sachmängelhaftung bei Privatverkäufen. Da ich aktuell viele gebrauchte Dinge im Netz verkaufe und mir nie sicher war, welche Formulierung einen Haftungsausschluss darstellt und wie ich klar machen kann, dass Rücknahme und Umtausch ausgeschlossen sind, habe ich mich auf die Suche gemacht und wurde relativ schnell in diesem Artikel von Stiftung Warentest fündig: Privatverkauf im Internet — Haftung ausschließen als Verkäufer

Die Quintessenz ist, dass bei mehrfachen Verkäufen von Gebrauchtware nur die folgende Formulierung einen wirksamen Haftungsausschluss darstellt:

Ich schließe jegliche Sach­mängelhaftung aus. Die Haftung auf Schaden­ersatz wegen Verletzungen von Gesundheit, Körper oder Leben und grob fahr­lässiger und/oder vorsätzlicher Verletzungen meiner Pflichten als Verkäufer bleibt uneinge­schränkt.

Wichtig hierbei ist eine genaue Beschreibung des Artikels und eventueller Makel und Mängel, sonst haftet der Verkäufer weiterhin.

Interessant ist auch—und das wusste ich nicht—dass bei Privatverkäufen grundsätzlich kein Recht auf Rücknahme, Minderungen, und Umtausch besteht. Ich denke ich werde dies aber weiterhin dazu schreiben.

Wired: Actually, Gender-Neutral Pronouns Can Change a Culture

Using the example of how the gender-neutral word “hen” changed perception and culture in Sweden, the authors of the article go through various issue that exist with making gender-neutral language the default.

As I read the article, I realised how much the use of the singular they/them is ingrained in my vocabulary at this point, thanks to amazing friends and colleagues who helped me educate myself on this topic.
It also made me wonder how I handle this in German, my native language.

I speak English every day and for a living. It makes using gender-neutral pronouns and more inclusive language easy; with the exception of androcentric words, gender typically doesn’t seep into the nouns themselves, unlike in German.

Thinking about this a bit, I tend to avoid pronouns in writing and speaking whenever possible but it can lead to less elegant and sometimes downright unwieldy sentences.

It led me down a rabbit hole filled with lots of variations of the same question on popular question/answer platforms “Wie kann they/them im Deutschen erwendet werden?” (How can they/them be used in German?) and eventually to a section in a German Wikipedia article on the topic, which was pretty good as an overview: Nicht-binäre Geschlechtsindentität - Das singuläre Pronomen “they”

The recommendations from various institutions and entities listed there are pretty good starting points but something about the use of neopronouns in German doesn’t yet manage to penetrate my skull. In the latest season of Star Trek: Discovery, there’s an amazing non-binary character and in the English audio, they/them is used. In German the translators went with “dey/dem” and it felt jarring to my ears. Illi Anna Heger published a broader discussion of this topic, highlighting various examples of German translations of they/them in German synchronisations and subtitles. Really worth a read.

I’m intensely curious which pronouns are going to become established norm for gender-neutral language in German and Im glad to see that even large organisations are starting to attempt using more inclusive language in their daily business. It would definitely be nice for an institution like the Duden (think: Merriam Webster in Germany) to throw their weight behind one of the neopronouns.

Utterly great comedian Tiff Stevenson last week had had Andy Zaltzman on her podcast, where she interviews various comedians and artists about the tiny revolutions in their lives. The conversation these two had is brilliant and features a lot of history of The Bugle, which has been my favourite podcast for almost 13 years.

I honestly find it hard to express how much joy The Bugle has brought me. I first found it by accident in late 2008 when I was in a bit of a stand up comedy show discovery phase while studying in Beijing. It popped up in the recommendations in Apple Podcasts and after the first listen, I was hooked.

When John Oliver left because, as Andy tells it, it just wasn’t possible to do Last Week Tonight and a weekly transatlantic podcast, I was gutted and very sad but obviously kept listening. The reimagined show, where Andy is joined by two correspondents every week, has been, in my opinion, the best thing that could’ve happened. I’d still love to see John Oliver return every now and then but the roster of people Andy is bringing on from around the world, all of them with their own perspectives, is hard to beat.

I was introduced to so many extremely funny comics: first and foremost Alice Fraser, as well as (and in no particular order) Tiff Stevenson, Nish Kumar, Aditi Mittal, Josh Gondleman, Anuvab Pal, Charlie George, James Nokise, Felicity Ward, Alison Spittle, and many, many more.

There are alerady two spin-offs, both hosted by Alice Fraser:
The Gargle, in which Alice and guests tackle anything that isn’t political news, and The Last Post, The Bugle from a parallel universe.

If you like satire, sillyness, and can handle puns, check out The Bugle and its sister shows. I’ll see you again in about 9 months, once you reemerge from the binge cave. 😁

Over the past few days I’ve been looking at potential alternatives to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom for my RAW processing and photo editing needs. It’s not that there’s a lot wrong with Lightroom, really. I’ve been using the applications, particularly those on iOS with satisfaction. With the renewal of my annual subscription coming up, I wanted to see what else is out there, at this point.

A few friends and acquaintances helped me with some recommendations and I took time to test them:

• Capture One Fujifilm surprised me with a decent UI and a significantly better rendering of Fujifilm RAF files than Lightroom. I’d read about that but didn’t think the difference would be this stark. Adobe should really do their homework there. Sadly, the macOS app was slow, slower than Lightroom. While that was disappointing, the complete lack of an iOS application disqualified it for me.
• Next up, I gave Affinity Photo a try and this app really shone for a number of reasons, including a very responsive user interface. The RAW renderer wasn’t as good for Fujifilm files as Lightroom’s, though. But the more important reason why I didn’t go deeper into it was the fact that this application is simply too much for my needs. It’s much closer to Photoshop than to Lightroom or Aperture (R.I.P Aperture 😢) and that’s overkill for me.
• The last one in the pack, Pixelmator Photo, has no macOS application. I can forgive that but it doesn’t read Fujifilm RAF files at all, which would mean I’d have to convert everything into DNG first. That’s a non-starter. It’s also an app that feels very similar to Affinity Photo. Since I have a licence for it anyway (as I do for every app the Pixelmator team have produced), it stays on my iPad for situations where Lightroom is too limited for a specific task.

It was good to see what the market currently offers and what I found was a) solid choices for different sets of needs and b) the realisation that Lightroom still fits my requirements best by

• having good, responsive iOS applications,
• an okay macOS offering,
• solid synchronisation of data and editing progress,
• decent if not perfect rendering of Fujifilm RAF files,
• and 1 TB of storage space, which works out as a very usable puzzle piece in my photo backup strategy.

If I had one wish for the Lightroom apps, it would be for Adobe to bring back geotagging. I miss this dearly from the classic Lightroom app.

TL;DR

• My saddle was too low because the method I used to determine saddle height didn’t work for me.
• I tried to overcompensate for what I perceived as excessive reach by moving the saddle forward. Moving it back instead and improving my posture worked a treat.

Backstory

In mid-December 2020 another half-hearted lockdown loomed in my region and there was a possibility that exercise outside might actually be prohibited. That made the decision to finally pull the trigger on a smart bike trainer easy and I was lucky enough to snag a mid-range model before they went out of stock in Germany.

I’ve been enjoying the smart trainer a lot and it’s helped me improve my many aspects of my cardiovascular fitness. Something I’ll write about at some point.
The other benefit the bike trainer brought with it, was the ability to slowly but steadily improve my bike fit on both my road bike and my gravel bike. It’s honestly had as much of, if not more of an impact on my riding as the marked improvement in fitness.

There are a lot of good resources for picking the right size of frame and dialling in the right position of the touch points on a bike, to achieve an optimal riding position. The three that have helped me the most since December are,

1. “Bike Fit Tuesdays” on Francis Cade’s youtube channel,
2. “Bike Fitting Series (with Neill Stanbury)” on Cam Nicholls’s youtube channel,
3. And the article “How to Determine the Correct Saddle Height” on the site of the cycling retailer Mantel, oddly enough.

The big issue with attempting to try all of the advice thrown around is that it’s hard to do on the bike when out riding or not being able to pedal while sitting on the bike. That’s where the trainer came in really handy and I’d encourage anyone to either buy or rent one, if you want to improve comfort and efficiency on your bicycle¹.

Side note:
Getting a professional bike fit has been something I considered to be something useful only for racers but I’ve come to change my mind and would now recommend getting one to anybody who either plans on buying a new bicycle or has issues with comfort on their current one.

So here’s what I learned

The resources I linked to above have loads of great information and greatly improved my understanding of how certain changes to a bike influence my riding position. The findings listed here came as a bit of a surprise to me, or were generally counterintuitive based on the information that is out there.

Moving my saddle back

James of Bicycle Richmond often mentions in the Bike Fit Tuesdays videos that many people buy bikes with excessive reach and then try to compensate for that by moving the saddle forward or hunching over the handlebars, which leads to all sorts of pains, mostly a lot of pressure on the hands and wrists.

Well for me it was a bit of a mixed bag. The bicycle frames I have are the right size, from what I can tell. I’ve already equipped my road bike and gravel bike with comparatively shorts stems (~ 7 cm) and the handlebars I use also have short reach figures. Still, I felt the need to use seat posts with no setback and moved the saddles forward, often as far as they went. I did so because of things I read about a good angle between torso and upper arms and a general impression of being too stretched out on my steeds.

The result has always been the aforementioned impression of riding on a stretcher even while I felt hunched over the handlebars and putting a lot of weight onto my hands and wrists. This in turn caused numbness in my hands, sometimes after only 20–30 min of riding. On the bike trainer, when I wasn’t shifting my position as often as I did riding outside, this effect was even more pronounced.

In one of the bike fitting videos I learned about hip position over the bottom bracket and how being too far forward could result in pains and less power output. I gave it a try, gradually moving the saddle back² and carefully tilting it forward a bit. This resulted in me rotating my upper body downward and my hip forward.
I was honestly stunned by how suddenly my core muscles had an easier time supporting my upper body, less weight resting on the hands, and the bike feeling less long even though I technically increased the distance between the nose of my saddle and the handlebars.

Something was still a little off:

My saddle was too low

This realisation was the single biggest revelation to my riding comfort and equally importantly; my cycling efficiency.

One of the most commonly used methods to estimate/determine saddle height is the “heel method”, where you sit squarely on the saddle and place your heel on the pedal, with the leg fully extended. If you cannot extend the leg fully, move the saddle up. If you find that you’re rolling of the side of the saddle trying to extend the leg, move the saddle down until you sit securely on the saddle again.

I’ve been setting my saddle height using this method for years and it Turns Out™ that it doesn’t work for me.

Looking at a video my partner recorded, I noticed that in the lowest pedal position the underside of my foot was pretty much level with the ground and that the angle of my upper leg to my lower leg was larger than typically recommended.

After some reading, I discovered two methods for calculating saddle height (see the article linked above) and they gave me totally different numbers than the heel method and a new starting point for experimentation.

I gradually increased the height of my saddle and ended up with 3 cm more³. Honestly, that’s a lot. The effects of this modification were and are profound:

1. I still feel perfectly planted on the saddle, perfectly secure sitting on the bike.
2. In the lowest pedal position my heel now sits higher than my toes and my leg is extended further. This has led directly to my calf muscles being activated and me being able to put more power down.
3. It made rotating my hip forward and my whole upper body downward even easier and even more comfortable.

Bonus: use a narrower saddle on a trainer

This one was a small but nice surprise.

At the beginning of my time with the smart trainer, I had specifically put a slightly wider saddle on my road bike thinking that the increased surface area would help spread the load I put on it, riding in a more static position than while out and about. After having already gone through the two steps above, I still felt some discomfort after a long time in the saddle on the trainer.

Looking for information, I stumbled across a video on the youtube cycling channel GCN where someone asked for advice with saddle sores/butt pain on a bike trainer. Their guidance was to use a narrower saddle than what one would typically use but obviously something that still supports the sit bones fully, to encourage more movement and better circulation while on a static trainer.

This bit of advice turned out to be bang-on for me and brought the desired improvement.

In conclusion

Using a bike trainer allowed me to cautiously experiment and eventually massively improve my bike fit. I was lucky in the sense that my bicycles have the right size and my basic assumptions about reach and stem length were correct. Honestly, I should’ve gotten a trainer (or better: a proper bike fit) a long time ago.

Cycling on my bikes now, I’m much more relaxed, able to put much more power down at the same perceived exertion, and long rides are more enjoyable because my bikes feel more comfortable.
On the gravel bike in tricky terrain there has been another positive side effect: due to the fact that I’m putting less weight onto the handlebars and being in a generally more balanced forward/aft position on the bike, I’m able to steer more nimbly. That gives me more confidence on technical climbs and descents and makes for a wildly improved and fun overall riding experience.

How exciting was that? I followed this over the past couple of days and seeing the team at NASA erupt in cheers when the successful touchdown was confirmed warmed my heart.

Have a look for yourself.

Yesterday evening, NASA published a blog post that contains recordings from the surface of Mars made by Perseverance.

Listen to it and try not to smile. These are actual sounds from the another planet in our solar system.

I am so looking forward to the high-resolution images that will be coming from the rover going forward.

Image source: nasa.gov

And the above picture showing the Perseverance and Mars 2020 spacecraft components on the surface post landing just makes me want to reread (or rather re-listen) to “The Martian” by Andy Weir. Such an excellent book.

There’s an interesting article up on Gravel Cyclist:
“Has Gravel Riding Got You Over-Tired / Over-Tyred? – By Big Head Todd”

In the article the author, Big Head Todd, vents a bit about the trend towards ever more aggressive tyres on gravel bikes these days, whether that be people adding them because they think they need them or because bicycle manufacturers add them as spec.

Reading through it, I nodded my head a lot because, inexperienced as I was/am with tyre choice, I’ve fallen into the same trap not too long ago and it took many rides on all kinds of terrain to take a step back and rethink how much tread I actually need.

My gravel bike sports a pair of WTB Nano 40 right now. These are absolute overkill for a lot of the gravel roads that I encounter. The Specialized Pathfinder Pro with 38 mm on my second wheel set (slick center channel and fairly tame knobs on the sides), are far more appropriate and offer much more versatility. The reason the Nano 40 spend more time on my bike than the Pathfinders, is because in recent months, I’ve been riding on terrain that would typically be considered MTB territory most of the time. And even if I leave out the occasional section of tame single track, I kind of enjoy going up challenging climbs with this bike; loose ground, roots, and sometimes muddy paths, where I struggle to find traction even with the WTB Nano 40 at low pressures and a gearing of 30 in the front and 40 in the back.

The Specialized Pathfinder Pro are an utterly delightful bit of rubber. Very much comparable to the excellent Donnelly X’Plor MSO 40 mm but more durable. They take a bit of getting used to, in that finding the right tyre pressure for the right terrain and rider/system weight isn’t as simple as with other tyres. Once I had a rough idea about that, it was simple to do the first half of a ride on gravel with stupid low pressures, letting the Pathfinder Pro climb really well and spend the second part of the ride blasting down a hill on tarmac, the tyres inflated to a higher pressure.

I’m glad that I have the WTB Nano 40 but at the same time, it would have been nice to know and understand the true capabilities of seemingly tame gravel tyres.
So if you’re looking for a good set of rubber for your do-it-all bike, think hard on where you ride and do some research before defaulting to the monster truck option.

I stumbled across this on Twitter. Originally this seems to be from the platform Quora but I wasn’t able to find the original posting.

The question asked:

Why do people get angry when I try to share the word of God with them? I only do it because I care about them deeply and don’t want them to end up in hell. I feel like some people avoid me because of this. Is there any way to get through to them?

A person calling themselves “Doug Robertson” responded with this:

The entire process is not what you think it is. It is specifically designed to be uncomfortable for the other person because it isn’t about converting them to your religion. It is about manipulating you so you can’t leave yours.
If this tactic was about converting people it would be considered a horrible failure. It recruits almost no one who isn’t already willing to join. Bake sales are more effective recruiting tools. On the other hand, it is extremely effective at creating a deep tribal feeling among its own members.

The rejection they receive is actually more important than the few people they convert. It causes them to feel a level of discomfort around the people they attempt to talk to. These become the “others”. These uncomfortable feelings go away when they come back to their congregation, the “Tribe”. If you take a good look at the process it becomes fairly clear. In most cases, the religious person starts out from their own group, who is encouraging and supportive. They are then sent out into the harsh world where people repeatedly reject them. Mainly because they are trained to be so annoying.
These brave witnesses then return from the cruel world to their congregation where they are treated like returning heroes. They are now safe. They bond as they share their experiences of reaching out to the godless people to bring them the truth. They share the otherness they experience.
Once again they will learn that the only place they are accepted is with the people who think as they do. It isn’t safe to leave the group. The world is your enemy, but we love you.

This is a pain reward cycle that is a common brainwashing technique. The participants become more and more reliant on the “Tribe” because they know that “others” reject them.
Mix in some ritualized chanting, possibly a bit of monotonous repetition of instructions, add a dash of fear of judgment by an unseen, but all-powerful entity who loves you if you do as you are told and you get a pretty powerful mix. Sorry, I have absolutely no wish to participate in someones brainwashing ritual.

This answer resonated with me not just in the way it mirrored experiences I had with certain types of people considering themselves religious. Also with the increasing number of people who believe in conspiracy myths, particularly those fuelled by or based in anti-semitic and fascist movements.

Ich habe gerade Urlaub und versucht meinen Social Media-Konsum auf ein Minimum herunterzufahren. Leider hat das aufgrund der Demo in Berlin nicht geklappt.

Wie erwartet war diese Demo ein Desaster auf ganzer Linie, ein wiederholtes Beispiel des völligen Versagens des Innenministeriums auf Bundes- und auf Berliner Landesebene, und für mich der aktuellste Hinweis auf einen Staatsapparat, der zunehmend von Rechtsradikalen und Rechtsextremen unterwandert wurde.

Die Bilder von Reichsflaggen vor dem Deutschen Bundestag und die versuchte Erstürmung des Bundestagsgebäudes durch Rechte und andere verabscheuungswürdige, demokratiefeindliche Personen haben mich nachhaltig entsetzt.
Diese Aktion war angekündigt. Es war klar, dass es versucht werden würde. Nur durch den beherzten Einsatz dreier Polizisten unter Lebensgefahr wurde die vollständige Erreichung der Ziele der Rechtsextremen vereitelt.

Aus dem oben verlinkten Tagesschau-Artikel:

SPD-Kanzlerkandidat Olaf Scholz schrieb: “Unser Grundgesetz garantiert Meinungsfreiheit und das Demonstrationsrecht. Es ist die Antwort auf das Scheitern der Weimarer Republik und den Schrecken der NS-Zeit. Nazisymbole, Reichsbürger- & Kaiserreichflaggen haben vor dem Deutschen Bundestag rein gar nichts verloren.”

Schöne Worte. Wäre super, wenn da Konsequenzen folgen. Herr Scholz, wieso überdenken Sie nicht mal ihre Aussagen zu den gewaltsamen Niederschlagungen linker Demos in Hamburg vor ein paar Jahren? Ach und CumEx steht auch noch im Raum. Nur mal so am Rande.

Unser Innenminister Horst Seehofer hat – ausgerechnet in der Bild am Sonntag – folgendes gesagt:

“Meinungsvielfalt ist ein Markenzeichen einer gesunden Gesellschaft. Die Versammlungsfreiheit hat aber dort ihre Grenzen, wo staatliche Regeln mit Füßen getreten werden” […] “Das Reichstagsgebäude ist die Wirkungsstätte unseres Parlaments und damit das symbolische Zentrum unserer freiheitlichen Demokratie. Dass Chaoten und Extremisten es für ihre Zwecke missbrauchen, ist unerträglich. Ich danke der Polizei, dass sie uns heute schnell und konsequent davor bewahrt hat. Der Staat muss gegenüber solchen Leuten mit null Toleranz und konsequenter Härte durchgreifen.”

Wieso wundert es mich nicht, dass Seehofer nicht „rechte Chaoten und Rechtsextremisten“ gesagt hat?

Wir brauchen keine leeren Worte, sondern konkrete Maßnahmen zur Bekämpfung von Rechtsextremismus und Rechtsterrorismus. Diese Politiker könnten etwas bewirken, sie haben die Autorität und die Mittel etwas zu tun.

Ich bin mittlerweile einfach nur noch sauer und meine Geduld, speziell für unaufrichtige und gefährliche Relativierungen von Links und Rechts, ist auf einem Tiefpunkt.

Oder anders ausgedrückt: Personen in Positionen der Macht, in Positionen mit politischem Einfluss, mit einem Mandat zum Schutz unserer demokratischen Grundordnung, die sich nicht zum Antifaschismus bekennen, die ihren Einfluss und ihre Fähigkeiten nicht in den Schutz unserer Demokratie investieren, sehe ich fortan als rechten Sympathisant:innen, rechte Kollaborateur:innen, oder einfach Rechtsextreme. Und diese Personen müssen mit allen legitimen Mittel in unserem Rechtsstaat bekämpft werden.

Oder nochmal anders ausgedrückt: Keine Toleranz für Intoleranz!

Quelle: Reddit thread
Spanisches Original: Pictoline

Well, I succumbed.

After so many road rides on my commuter/road bike with its 1×12 gearing, I realised that having a proper drop bar road bike would be nice because switching the wheel set on Battle Cat, my gravel bike, becomes annoying quickly with my riding being 60/40 gravel/road, and I really don’t want to put aero bars on my gravel bike.

When I saw a good offer for a used Litespeed road bike, I pounced. It’s a 2004—I think—Litespeed Tuscany and it had a mix of Campagnolo Record/Chorus 2×10 components, Zonda G3 & G4 wheels, a 46/36 carbon FSA crankset, and a 13–26 cassette.

Hopping on the bike for the first time was a strange feeling. Not only had I never ridden a Campagnolo group¹ before, the geometry was completely off. And I mean … what?
The previous owner of the bike supposedly is 2 cm shorter than I am and has a 1 cm shorter inseam length. It felt like I was lying on the bike and not sitting on it. My only guess is that the previous owner must have a long torso and long arms. I wasn’t able to do anything about the crazy long reach of the drop bars or the 110 mm stem or the 35 mm setback of the seat post but all of this was going to change anyway.

I was going to completely dismantle the bike and upgrade the components, mostly with things I still had in my workshop and some which I bought used off classifieds:

• Full mechanical Shimano Ultegra R8000 groupset with a 11-speed 11–32 cassette.
• The Easton EA90 crankset with a 46/30 chainring, that I ran on my gravel bike, because I like my legs and the hills here are steep.
• An Easton EA70 seat post and stem. The seat post has no setback and the stem is 70 mm long.
• A Canyon H17 drop bar replaces the very strangely shaped FSA drop bars.
• The Fabric Scoop Pro Shallow saddle that served me on my commuter until then.
• Specialized HD Wrap bar tape.²

I searched for a new wheel set, too, but anything that could have be seen as an improvement over the Campagnolo wheels that were already on the bike would’ve made this project unnecessarily expensive. To my utter delight I found that Campagnolo used to make (and maybe still makes) 11-speed Shimano HG free hubs for these old wheel sets and the switch was just as easy as with the DT Swiss wheels that I’ve come to get used to over the past few years. Considering that this wheel set is 14+ years old, I was rather impressed, and really; it looks hella cool.
The tyres are Continental Four Seasons in 25 mm and barely show signs of wear, so they’re sticking around, too.³

This past weekend, after I had all components and tools I needed, including a Shimano ISIS bottom bracket removal tool that was kindly lent to me by the owner of a local bike shop, and I began the process of disassembling bike, cleaning everything thoroughly, checking for as of then unseen defects, and putting it back together with new parts.

The process involved a few neat little bike maintenance firsts for me: shortening a carbon steerer tube, installing a BSA bottom bracket, and setting up modern symmetric dual pivot road bike rim brakes — and there I was thinking properly aligning disc brake pads was fiddly. I’ve learned quite a bit and I’m happy about it.

The end result looks like this:

I’m still getting used to the horizontal top tube—it kind of betrays the age of the frame—but the first proper ride this morning was gobs of fun. I picked a short but taxing route up a familiar hill with a manageable gradient to see how it climbs and down a proper descent to see how fast it would go.⁴

During the assembly process, I kept wondering what to call this new bike and it came to me while blasting down the road from St. Peter towards Eschbach: sticking with the „Masters of the Universe“ theme the bike will carry the name „Swift Wind“.

The aero bars are coming on over the next few days and I need different pedals for it but I am very much looking forward to all of the riding I’ll be doing with it.

In the process of setting up my second CR 1600 Spline wheel set tubeless, I ran into the issue of the wheels not holding pressure again. The tubeless valves that DT Swiss provide with their wheels, or rather the gasket used, simply doesn’t seal well in those rims (the middle and right gaskets in the picture below).

For this wheel set I bought a set of Muc-Off Tubeless Presta Valves, which also came with three different types of gaskets. Being hopeful, I tried using the gasket that looked similar to the one supplied by DT Swiss and it was a failure, like last time. The tyres/wheels wouldn’t hold air well and my workshop smelled like Muc-Off sealant all day.

The solution was to switch to the biggest gasket supplied with the valves (pictured left). Even with the valve screw tightened down with less force, I got a proper seal immediately and the next morning the tyre pressure gauge showed the same 4.8 Bar I pumped the tyres up to.

Yesterday I took the bike out for a ride and everything worked perfectly with no pressure loss whatsoever.

Side note:
Apart from this issue with getting a good tubeless valve seal, the wheel set(s) have been incredible. Considering the amount of abuse I subject one of them to, it’s surprising that it still runs perfectly true. Really good value for money. Fitting most tyres (tubeless or tubed) is a breeze.

I adore Amber Ruffin’s comedy and I look forward to her appearances on Late Night with Seth Meyers every time.

With the protests following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in the U.S. continuing and the Trump Regime doing everything they can to brutally crush them, Seth Meyers and his team have started bringing on more black voices during the recent shows. Amber Ruffin spoke of two of many encounters she had with police as a black person.

Monday, 01 June 2020

Tuesday, 02 June 2020

Wednesday, 03 June 2020

Thursday, 04 June 2020

The Dutch artist Mark Dolk posted this drawing on their Instagram page on 10 May 2020. A few days ago, as the COVID-19 death toll in the U.S.A. rose over 100,000 people and Donald Trump went golfing once again, the image went viral.


There is a criminal in the White House. A traitor to the American people, aided and abetted by a corrupt Attorney General, encouraged and protected by a criminally depraved Republican Party who use Trump as a shield to pursue their worst impulses and to enrich themselves and their friends.

This man and his cronies are actively dismantling what remains of the democracy of the United States and they do not care how many U.S. citizens they kill to achieve the goal of turning the republic into an empire.

As the researcher and writer Sarah Kendzior said

This is a transnational crime syndicate masquerading as a government

Trump and the rest of his regime must be voted out and prosecuted. There is nothing they fear more than losing the election in November because if they do, there’s a faint chance they might face consequences for their actions, and they are doing everything in their power to prevent this from happening.

Das unser deutscher Verfassungsschutz zumindest inkompetent ist und häufig höchst bedenkliche Entscheidungen trifft, war schon bekannt, bevor die Ausmaße der Terrorserie des NSU ans Licht kamen. So viel ist, denke ich, unumstritten.

Mit den Äußerungen des ehemaligen Chefs des BfV, Hans-Georg Maaßen, am 07.09.2019 zu den Hetzjagden gegen ausländisch aussehende Menschen durch Rechtsradikale in Chemnitz, fragte ich mich zum ersten Mal wie weit – nicht ob – der Verfassungsschutz von Rechtsradikalen und Rechtsextremen unterwandert wurde.
Die offensichtliche ideologische Nähe von Maaßen und der NSDAP-Nachfolgepartei AfD machen dies nicht besser. Und überhaupt ist Herr Maaßen der Verfassung und dem Grundgesetz gegenüber eher feindlich eingestellt.

Jetzt bewirft sich der Berliner Verfassungsschutz mal wieder nicht mit Ruhm, indem das Klimaschutzbündnis „Ende Gelände“ als linksextrem eingestuft wird.

Diese und viele weitere Vorfälle lassen mich daran zweifeln, ob der Verfassungsschutz tatsächlich noch den ursprünglichen Auftrag verfolgt, oder mittlerweile nur noch ein weiteres Werkzeug von rechten und neoliberalen Akteuren ist. Und diese Vorstellung gefällt mir überhaupt nicht.

Es ist, meiner Meinung nach, Zeit das Bundesamt und die Ableger in den Ländern einer sehr gründlichen Prüfung zu unterziehen. Alle Personalentscheidungen und Handlungen der letzten paar Jahrzehnte gehören genau unter die Lupe genommen und daraus müssen Konsequenzen gezogen werden.

Since going 1× on my gravel bike, I’ve had a couple of instances of dropping my chain on quick and bumpy descents. Pelting down a forest road at 50+ km/h, this was quite scary. It was also a bit surprising because the combination of equipment on the bike is supposed eliminate or heavily reduce the chances of dropping the chain:

• Shimano RD-RX800 clutch rear derailleur
• e*thirteen XCX Plus 9–39 11-speed cassette
• Race Face 32-tooth narrow-wide chain ring

The chain dropping only happened in the 9-tooth cog, which led me to think this might be caused by a lack of chain tension combined with the e*thirteen cassette. I got in touch with the e*thirteen support team and received a really great response, pointing out a number of scenarios and ideas for solving this issue: increasing the B screw tension, shortening the chain by a couple of links, or adding a chain guide.

Since I a) didn’t want to mess with the B screw too much so as not to degrade shifting performance, b) I sized the chain properly, and c) a chain guide is also out of the question because it would completely ruin – Ruin! I say! – the clean aesthetics of the bike, I looked for a different solution and I think I found it in a Garbaruk chainring.

Garbaruk builds these chainrings with 40% taller teeth and an overall longer tooth profile, as the two photos below show well, I think:

The overall fit of the chain on the chainring is also much tighter and the effect of this has been very positive.

Since mounting the Garbaruk chainring, I have yet to drop the chain, no matter the situation. I hope it’s going to stay that way and I’m curious how quickly the chainring is going to wear down.

The e*thirteen XCX Plus 9–39 11-speed cassette has been on my gravel bike for over a month now and I’ve ridden over 250 km with it so far. It replaced a Shimano XT CS-M8000 11–40 cassette that I’ve ridden for over a year and countless of kilometres. These are my first impressions of the cassette.

• Shifting is crisper but a bit more fiddly to set up. I don’t know if it’s the higher number of shift gates or the tooth profile but it took me a while to get shifting right on the bike stand. The cassette would react more quickly to less than optimal indexing. Once tuned properly, I found that it shifts quicker, even under load, and the shift action feels more positive.
• It’s louder. Not to the point where it annoys me but it took a bit of getting used to. I assume the lightweight construction with the large hollow space amplifies chain noise and shifting sounds.
• The cassette feels solid and it has yet to show any signs of wear.
• Chain wrap on the 9-tooth cog doesn’t seem to be an issue. I had read this in a couple of places and was worried that going with such a small cog for the highest gear could cause chain skipping but I’ve not had a problem. Mind you, I’m using a Ultegra RD-RX800 rear derailleur and a Shimano 105 11-speed chain (didn’t want to put on a fresh Ultegra chain, just yet) and I’ve properly adjusted the B-screw tension. Even going full-bore on a flat section, putting as much power as I can into it, hasn’t caused any problems (more on that further down).
• With the chain on the smallest cog and depending on the chainring used up front (32-tooth and 36-tooth for my bicycles), the chain will be very close to the rear end of the chain stay. Depending on the bike, this may not fit at all. On my Litespeed T5G, I’ve noticed some chain slap going down fast and bumpy descents in the 9-tooth cog, even with a clutch rear derailleur. This is something I’ve never experienced with the 11-tooth cog on the XT cassette and it may be a deal breaker for some.
• Lastly, and this is not something I’d ever see myself write: it’s noticeably lighter than the cassette it replaced. Sure, ~ 100 g might not sound like much to a less experienced cyclist such as myself but the back wheel seems just a bit more nimble, riding across bumpy gravel tracks.

All in all I’m happy with the cassette so far. It’s done exactly what I had hoped it would when converting my bike from a 2× 11 to a 1×11 system. With a 32-tooth chainring up front, the 9–39 spread in the back gives me an ample gear range, an easy 0.82 gear ratio in the lowest gear, a reasonably fast 3.55 gear ratio in the highest gear, and fairly tight and even gear spacing, particularly in the higher gears.

In fact, I’ve been so happy with this piece of kit that I bought an e*thirteen cassette for my city/commuter/road bike that has, up until recently, sported a full SRAM NX Eagle group with a 11–50 cassette and a 32-tooth chainring. I replaced the NX Eagle cassette with the 2nd generation TRS Plus 12-speed 9–46 cassette and the front chainring with a 36-tooth (soon 38-tooth).

Based on my initial experiences with the 9–39 on my gravel bike, what drew me to the 9–46 12-speed was a) the lower weight, b) the greater range of 511% on the e*thirteen compared to 455% on the NX Eagle, while at the same time offering c) a much tighter and, in my eyes, more sensible gear spacing in the higher gears. The first six gears on the TRS Plus cassette are 9, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 where on the NX Eagle the jumps are 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 22. My first road ride with the new cassette was a 45 km trip mostly on the road up a local mountain and then down again and I very quickly appreciated the choices made by e*thirteen.
Finally, chain wrap on the 9-tooth cog is perfectly fine with a SRAM Eagle rear derailleur and a GX Eagle chain. I tried a couple of times to produce any kind of skipping, riding at 80 rpm, on a slight incline, pushing 42 km/h (yes, I was very much winded after) and I experienced no issues whatsoever.

I’m looking forward to many more kilometres with these cassettes and I’ll write a long term review at a later point.

By internet time this story is ages old, I know, but I was reminded again that Apple cares about audio quality and why Neil Young is so.very.wrong. 😉
He made a few waves in the tech sphere in late January by stating something to the effect of the Apple’s MacBook Pro having a shit DAC (Digital Analogue Converter) and Apple generally caring more about consumerism than creating high quality audio equipment for professionals.

Jim Dalrymple thoroughly debunked any of the claims made by Young on The Loop weeks ago but I wanted to offer a different example:
The Apple Lightning/USB-C to 3.5 mm Headphone Jack Adapter

Many people make fun of these little dongles and I get it. Apple removed the headphone jack from its iPhone and iPads and replaced it with an easy-to-lose USD 9.— dongle and they called it courage. My feelings about the dongle went from a solid meh (#donglelyfe) to loving these little things, seriously loving them. The reason is simple: they have amazing sound quality.

In more technical terms (source 1, source 2):

• The output source impedance measures > 1Ω.
• Frequency response is close to perfectly flat.
• Harmonic distortion is almost nonexistent across various resistances (Ω).
• Dynamic range is on par with previous iPhone headphone jacks, which had great audio quality

In less technical terms it means that these little dongles can drive extremely sensitive earphones with no to absolutely minimal changes to the frequency response (their sound signature) on the one hand and can also power full-size headphones on the other hand. To get this kind of flexibility and sound quality, you’d typically have to buy and lug around a dedicated portable DAC.

My earphones of choice are the Campfire Audio Andromeda, great sounding earphones that are very hard to drive properly. Sources with an output resistance of larger than 1Ω will quickly and negatively impact the sound signature, starting with reducing the bass response dramatically.

Using Apple’s dongles, they sound brilliant, same as they do on my MacBook Pro. I even use the USB-C dongle to listen to music on the Microsoft Surface Pro 2 that I use for work a lot. Its 3.5 mm audio jack is … not good, to be polite. With a USB-A to USB-C adapter and the USB-C audio dongle (again #donglelyfe), I get perfect audio quality listening to losslessly compressed music.

So no, Mr. Young, Apple does care about audio quality even on a consumer level. And what I use for proof are these tiny, easy-to-lose, beautifully sounding, flexible dongles.

No no no, hear me out…

It’s crazy how many things I can get done on this little super computer that is my smartphone but sometimes when writing longer texts, particularly email responses, or blog post, or telling someone on the internet how they’re so wrong about something (kidding), having a physical keyboard is a blessing.

So when this video popped up in my youtube recommendations, I thought, yeah no, not something like this because that’s stupid and unusable unless you have very thin fingers.

I’ve found this little old ThinkOutside foldable bluetooth keyboard for Pocket PCs over a year ago for € 30.— and take it with me as a redundancy if my laptop or iPad doesn’t work on a trip. They keys assignments are obviously made for Pocket PCs/Windows CE and the keys are not big but it’s still a huge productivity boost if you really need to write a lot.

The Psion 5mx was maybe my favourite PDAs back in the day. The keyboard was big enough for some semblance of multi-finger typing and it was a pleasure to type on. If someone where to make a keyboard case for smartphones with a versatile insert system for different smartphones (read: future proofing) and a wired connection (think: adapters for USB-C, Lightning, Micro-USB), I’d be all …

I could live with a bluetooth connection too and in that case, add a big battery into the bottom to give it some heft and long battery life.

Alternatively, just make the Palm Foldable Keyboard again (at some point Targus had the rights to it), lest I might seriously consider making an adapter for it.

Yesterday Fujifilm announced a few new things at their “X Summit” in London. The most consequential one for me was the announcement of the X100V. It’s the fifth generation of the X100 series and it’s going to be my next camera.

I’ve been in love with the concept of the X100 series since shortly after I started shooting with Fujifilm APS-C cameras but it always had too many crucial drawbacks for me to consider actually buying one.

The lens

The first lens I bought for my X-E1 way back when, was the XF23mmF1.4 R. I purchased it because after inspecting the photos I had taken with the XF18-55mmF2.8-4 R LM kit lens, I saw that most of my shots were in the 22–24 mm range and I wanted something with a wider aperture to play around with. The 23/1.4 is still the lens I shoot with the most. I absolutely love it.

The lens in the X100 series, while decent, simply didn’t have the same versatility. Corner sharpness wasn’t very good at f/2 and shooting at close focus distances wide open resulted in very soft pictures. Coming from the XF23mmF1.4 R, that’s simply not something I would be able to accept.

(As a side note, the same drawbacks of the X100 lens also apply to the XF23mmF2 R WR lens, albeit not in the severity as found in the X100 series lenses up until now. It’s the reason why I sold the lens again after having used it for a few months.)

Weather sealing

I can’t begin to say how much I appreciate this on my Fujifilm cameras. I have it on the X-Pro2, on the X-T3, and I had it on the X-T1. I take a camera with me almost everywhere I go in any weather. Be it for a trip downtown or going hiking with my dogs. The cameras and weather sealed lenses have handled everything I’ve thrown at them so far and I had hoped Fujifilm would’ve added this to the X100F already, but no.

Now, the new X100V is properly weather sealed once you put a protective filter on the lens and that gives you an extremely compact package that you can take anywhere.

Flippy screen

Maybe you like it maybe you don’t, I like having it and dislike not having it on the X-Pro2. To get this in a camera as small as the X100V is just a nice bonus that only increases the camera’s usefulness.

After the announcement, I read the excellent preview written by Jonas Rask and immediately knew that it would be very hard to pass up on the X100V.

Then the first review by Chris and Jordan of DPReview TV was published and that completely sealed the deal. It’s worth a watch.

An observation regarding Fujifilm’s product policy

Chris Nichols and Jordan Drake mentioned something interesting in the video. Fujifilm has put almost all features found in the very recently released X-Pro3 into the X100V. More than you’d typically expect for what is essentially a compact large-sensor camera. Even the video features are solid for the most part.
This really made me happy because it shows that Fujifilm is essentially following Apple’s (and particularly Steve Jobs’s playbook) for positioning and releasing products:
Instead of artificially separating their product lines to prevent cannibalisation, by limiting the feature sets compared to the flagship products, they let their products cannibalise themselves instead of letting products by other manufacturers do so. This creates true choice for customers and—to me—is a sign of respect for the customers by the company.

Fujifilm continues to give me reasons to like them.

I started the video expecting to see Chris Nichols report on significant differences in optical performance between the € 199,— XC35mmF2 and the € 399,— XF35mmF2 just because capitalism. Sometimes it’s nice to be wrong and particularly in this case.

Fujifilm is taking the guts of this lens and making it available in an even more affordable package. That is such a great move because it gives a customer the option to decide if they want to spend money on weather sealing and a full metal build without having to compromise on optical quality or autofocus speed.

I have the XF35mmF2 R WR. After failing to take to it in the beginning, I warmed to it when I realised how fast this lens was and how nicely it renders high contrast scenes. It’s become my go-to lens for taking pictures when out for walks or hiking with the dog, because I can rely on it focusing quickly on moving subjects and capturing what I see. Then there’s the focal length that, while a bit tighter than I typically like, lends itself well for the types of outdoor portraits that I like to shoot. It really is Fujifilm’s Nifty Fifty and such good value for money. I’ve shot some of my favourite photos of my furry friends and some great portraits of friends and family with it.

I absolutely love David Lanham’s art; he has such a distinctive and captivating style. I’ve gotten to know his work through wallpapers and icons made for macOS for The Iconfactory years ago (hey, remember CandyBar?) and I’ve been following him ever since.

No matter if you like cute or strange animals, otherworldly sceneries, or sometimes downright grotesque imagery, I’m sure you’ll find something you like.

These are two of his recent sketches that I couldn’t take my eyes off of.

Lanham also recently published another one of his wallpaper packs that contain lots of amazing paintings and exclusive art that you won’t find anywhere else, all in wallpaper sizes. It’s a steal for the price he’s asking.

Diese Meldung sah ich heute in meinem Twitter-Stream:

Umstellung auf Elektromobilität: VDA verlangt Milliardenhilfen für Autohersteller und Zulieferer.

Ich empfinde das als Frechheit und es macht mich traurig. Ich bin Opelanerkind. Teile meiner Familie arbeiten oder arbeiteten in der Automobilindustrie. Trotzdem sage ich, die deutsche Autoindustrie verdient es zu sterben, statt Milliardenhilfen zu erhalten.

Diese Industrie entwickelt seit so vielen Jahren völlig am Markt, an den Realitäten des Klimawandels und den Veränderungen bei Transport und Mobilität vorbei, betrügt, drückt sich vor den Konsequenzen des eigenen kriminellen Handelns, lässt sich an allen Ecken und Enden vom Staat subventionieren und übertreibt die eigene Wichtigkeit für den langfristigen wirtschaftlichen Wohlstand dieses Landes.
Und jetzt traut sie es sich nach weiterer Unterstützung zu fragen, obwohl die Fehlentscheidungen und die Jahrzehnte an Missmanagement der Altherrenriege dazu führte, dass die Kacke nun am dampfen ist und dieser gewaltige Haufen Scheiße sich nicht mehr hinter einem Berg an SUVs verstecken lässt.

Es reicht.

Diese Firmen, VW, Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Porsche, undwiesiealleheißen, sollen entweder radikale Änderungen durchführen und ernsthafte, realistische und innovative Produkte anbieten, oder sie verdienen es durch andere Firmen ersetzt zu werden und zu Grunde zu gehen.

Ich habe keine Lust, dass meine Steuergelder dafür verschwendet werden Firmen am Leben zu erhalten, deren einziges Ziel es ist Shareholder Value zu generieren und den eigenen Top-Managern Millionengehälter zu zahlen.

Diese Firmen sind für mich als Betriebswirtschaftler der Inbegriff von Versagen: der Ruf nach Subventionen und offenen wie indirekten Drohungen, das Land würde wirtschaftlichen Schaden nehmen, zeugt nicht nur von fehlendem Geschäftssinn und Ideenlosigkeit, sondern auch von purer Feigheit und dem Eingeständnis, dass sie zur Teilnahme an einem tatsächlichen Wettbewerb im Kapitalismus weder fähig noch willens sind.

CES 2020 is in full swing and two things Dell announced—or rather teased—have me intrigued:

The Concept Duet with its two 13.4 inch full HD touch displays and a traditional keyboard that you can put on one of the sides when you don’t want to type on glass absolutely looks like something is would use. I think it’s a great idea to have two screens that allow for adaptive interaction with content and controls and the option to read on it like a big book when I want to. This entire class of devices that Microsoft has been attempting to generate hype for since their last developer conference could become a really interesting computing experience.

Alienware’s Concept UFO is a gaming PC shrunk down and put into a device that looks and works like a Nintendo Switch. This is certainly a more ambitious project and less likely to ever become a viable product compared to the dual screen laptop Concept Duet. After reading and watching the coverage of this early stage concept, I can’t help but hope that it won’t stay just a concept but become a real thing. I’ve been playing Star Wars – Jedi: Fallen Order on a loaned PS4 and the thought of having this type of game on a handheld console that I can also attach to my TV if I want to is more than a little exciting.

Adobe updated Lightroom for iPad yesterday and added a few very welcome features, chief among them direct photo import from SD cards and other storage devices. Many people, myself included, have been waiting for this since Apple announced at WWDC that it was opening up external storage devices natively to third party applications in iOS and iPadOS.

The other big feature that I really appreciate having in Lightroom on my iPad now, is the ability to export data to external devices in different formats, including the RAW files and with predefined settings.

If you’re using Lightroom on your iPad, this application has just become a lot more useful and powerful.

Over the past week three upcoming movies had their trailers released that I just cannot wait to see in the cinema.

James Bond — No Time To Die

This is, once again, supposed to be the last Bond movie starring Daniel Craig in the leading role as James Bond. I may have grown up with Pierce Brosnan’s Bond but I still consider Craig to be “my Bond”. His portrayal of the character and the movies as a whole have brought a new grittyness, realism, and emotional component to the franchise that I find very enjoyable.
Still, I think the Bond movies need a bit of a shake-up and for that reason, I’m very excited to see a female 00 agent in the next film. I really hope we’ll be treated to the mantle of James Bond being handed to someone who’s not a white male actor.

Black Widow

It’s sad that this wasn’t released before the character of Black Widow has been sacrificed in “Avengers: Endgame” but I’m glad that it’s coming nonetheless. My secret hope is that they’re not going to hold back on the character and explore some of Romanoff’s past misdeeds and her quest to clear the red in her ledger.

Wonder Woman 1984

This came out yesterday and I was squealing like a little girl. I’m not entirely sure about the fact they’re bringing back her love interest and I’m also not sure if I need another look back, I think I’d rather see Diana Prince/Wonder Woman kick ass in the present after the events of “Justice League”.

Es ist irgendwie jedes mal das Gleiche: ich möchte etwas per Internet bestellen, finde einen Onlineshop mit angeblich zügiger Lieferzeit, kaufe den Artikel und dann heißt es warten.

Meistens kommt im Laufe von 24 Stunden eine E-Mail die mir mitteilt, dass die Ware versandt wurde. In Vorfreude öffne ich die E-Mail, klicke auf den Sendungsverfolgungslink und … … … bin enttäuscht.

Ich kann mich nicht erinnern, wann ich in den letzten Jahren etwas im Internet bestellt habe und mit dem Eintreffen der “Versandbestätigung” war die Ware auch tatsächlich in den Händen des Versanddienstleisters. Fast immer ist der Status, den ich sehe ein “Die Sendung wurde dem Versanddienstleister elektronisch angekündigt."

Es gibt genug Onlineshops, bei denen weiß ich, dass wenn ein Artikel lagernd verfügbar ist und ich vor 14:00 Uhr bestelle, die Sendung tatsächlich am gleichen Tag auf den Weg kommt. Es gibt aber auch genug andere Läden im Netz, bei denen zwischen der Ankündigung der Sendung bei DHL, Hermes, DPD, UPS, etc. und dem tatsächlichen Paketausgang durchaus einige Tage vergehen können, selbst wenn das Produkt auf Lager ist.

Ich frage mich in solchen Momenten dann immer ob die Onlineshops wirklich denken, dass es in ihrem Interesse ist, wenn ein Kunden sich kurze Zeit nach der Bestellung verarscht fühlt. Es kann nicht so schwer sein, den automaticshen Versand einer E-Mail-Versandbestätigung an den Status “Die Sendung ist im Verteilzentrum eingetroffen und wird für den Weitertransport in die Zielregion vorbereitet." eines Versandunternehmens zu koppeln.
Für mich als Kunden würde das weniger höhnisch, deutlich aufrichtiger wirken, und die E-Mail hätte einen tatsächlichen Informationswert.

After my failed experiment of trying to mount 650b wheels on Battle Cat, my gravel bike, I couldn’t get the idea of having two wheel sets out of my head; one for off road riding and one for road use.

After a bit of searching on eBay classifieds, I found a lightly used (e.g. ridden for ~ 700 km) set of DT Swiss CR 1600 SPLINE 23 wheels for a decent price. These things don’t come cheap when new and the person selling them had used them on a Canyon Inflite AL as well, before upgrading to carbon rims.

For me, this is ideal because a) I know that these will fit my bike well, b) changing between wheels for road and off road use is going to be almost seamless with no need to readjust the brakes or the rear derailleur (I’m using the same Shimano XT CS-M8000 11–40 cassette on the road set up, and c) these rims will likely last me for years.
I’ve ridden the existing set I have hard over the past two years and while they do have a couple of scratches and one of two dings, I have not yet managed to get them out of true. In addition to that the DT Swiss Ratchet freewheel system is great to ride and easy to service. Having it on both wheel sets is another bonus.

Oh and my Clement/Donelly X’Plor MSO tyres have made a quicker comeback than I expected. Yes, they’re not dedicated road tyres but they are starting to show signs of age anyway and I’m going to use them for winter riding, enjoying the extra grip they provide, instead of buying a new pair of road rubber.

On Wednesday, in an attempt to make good use of the surprisingly sunny weather, I took my gravel bike out for a first ride with the WTB Nano 40.

My recent experiment of using 650b × 47 mm tyres on my bike failed due to tyre rub on the left chain stay, yes, but it gave me a taste of what wider, higher-volume tyres with an aggressive tread could do for riding gravel and some tame singletrack. So after doing some research on 700×40c rubber, I had high hopes for the WTB NANO 40.

(I set up the tyres tubeless with Muc-Off’s No Puncture Hassle Tubeless Sealant and inflated them to 37 psi up front and 38 psi in the back referencing the handy tubeless tire pressure recommendations published by ENVE.)

For this outing I put together a 20 km route that I had ridden before, at least in parts, comprised of fire roads, some root-y singletrack, a few fast descents on what I thought was going to be either fire roads or well-worn foot paths. The bad news is that some of the paths had been shut down years ago and were very much overgrown and hard to navigate, the good news is that I was not only able to try the NANO 40 on loose, muddy, sloshy, puddle-dotted forest roads, I was also treated to a crazy fast descent on a 3 km hard pack and relatively dry gravel road.

After finishing the ride, I was left with two dominant feelings from this first experience with the NANO 40:

1. What an insanely fun ride. These tyres did such a good job and provided loads of grip even in ankle-deep mud.
2. You idiot. You had considered buying these almost two years ago when you replaced the Schwalbe X-One 33 mm tyres on the Canyon Inflite AL that brought you to gravel cycling in the first place but you didn’t do it because you were too chicken about trying a tubeless setup and the tread looked too aggressive.

So what did I learn?

For one that tubeless setups are the way to go for me moving forward, it seems.
Don’t get me wrong, the Donnelly X’Plor MSO 700×40c 120 TPI tube tyres I’ve ridden so far are crazy good. Having now ridden a properly supple and comparatively aggressively treaded tyre, I appreciate them even more. For a tubed tyre, they are very comfortable and robust even when ridden below the manufacturers specification of ~ 50 psi and they offer great traction within their limits.

Then there’s the realisation that once the fear of pinch flats is reduced and I embrace lower pressures, it opens up a lot more paths to ride. That said, I am going to increase the pressure in the back wheel for the next ride to 40 psi, because at 38 psi, it sometimes squirmed too much beneath me especially on faster, slightly rockier roads.

Lastly that I felt the NANO 40 provides a very good mix of a fast rolling 700c tyre and some serious grip on loose ground that the WTB Sendero 47 got me hooked on.

Oh and they look oh so nice on my bike 😏

My colleague and friend Mike sent me a link to an interview with Phil Schiller on c|net conducted by Roger Cheng. The core part of the interview concerns the new 16" MacBook Pro and the redesign of the keyboard away from Apple’s butterfly mechanism to an improved scissor mechanism. Later in the discussion, they talk about how iPads and Macs coexist and the purpose of each device. Schiller’s answer to a question about whether Apple can see the iPad and Mac merging like this:

No, that’s not our view. Because then you get this in-between thing, and in-between things are never as good as the individual things themselves. We believe the best personal computer is a Mac, and we want to keep going down that path. And we think the best tablet computing device is an iPad, and we’ll go down that path.

iPad benefits because we assume that you need to be able to do most everything with touch, and we don’t have to trade off on that experience. Mac assumes you want to do most everything with a keyboard and mouse input. We don’t have to trade off on that path. You can look at some of the other products that will try to go halfway between the two. They end up just compromising experiences. That’s not good.

I have a 12.9" 3rd generation iPad Pro. It’s a device that’s as close to my teenage self’s Star Trek P.A.D.D. dream as I could hope for. But what drove me to stop using iPads for a couple of years after the iPad Air 2 and what still bugs me, even in iPadOS, are the limitations Apple places on the software of the device and on the capabilities of third party software. The way Schiller frames the separation between iPads and Macs is based on the type of input and that, to me, misses the point.

Let me put it this way. When I was shopping for a new tablet at the beginning of the year, the decision to go for the top-of-the-line iPad Pro instead of an infinitely more capable Surface Pro 6 came down to two things:

1. I put a gigantic amount of faith and € 2,000+ in Apple, hoping they would come through and at least add support for external storage with the next major release, as had been speculated. Thankfully, iPadOS delivered.
2. The quality of third party software on iOS (and macOS), particularly from indie developers and once you venture outside of the big name applications, is still completely unmatched on Windows and in all areas: touch-friendliness, UX and UI design, etc.

On this I agree with Schiller: it’s important to have proper support for touch and proper support for mouse + keyboard in the devices you offer.
The best example sits in front of me daily; my lovely Surface Pro 2. This is a full-fledged Windows PC with all of the potential you expect it to have but using the operating system and third party applications in touch mode is a compromise at best and impossible at worst (and don’t even get me started on the schizophrenic nature of Windows 10 itself with a Settings app and the Control Panel app).
But the above also goes to show that it’s not a matter of the devices' form factor or input methods but a matter of having the operating system expose as much potential to the software running on it and enforcing a high standard of optimisation for the form factor and input methods.

Comparing a modern Surface Pro 7 to a current iPad Pro leaves me with this conclusion:

Windows 10 limits how comfortably I can accomplish my tasks but iPadOS still limits what tasks I can accomplish.

And this is what I continue to have issues with, this is the thing that drives me to pick up my MacBook Pro or my Surface Pro 2 for tasks as trivial as using some necessary extension in a browser like Brave ¹, or quickly converting a video file I created on my camera into a different format, or adding new music to the Music app on my iPad, or inspecting the code of my website right in the browser I’m using. Tasks that the iPad, as a device, is absolutely capable of but that iPadOS keeps me from doing.

A couple of weeks ago I had the idea to buy a second wheel set for Battle Cat, my gravel bike, to expand the where I can ride it. The plan was to keep the 700c wheel set I’ve been riding for the past two years for longer gravel rides or for road riding (using road tyres, obviously). I would then buy a 650b/27.5” wheel set and a pair of wider tyres with more bite to venture into more gnarly terrain.

I inquired with the frame manufacturer what tyre width would be safe to use in the frame and set out to find a good, used wheel set from DT Swiss because I’ve had nothing but great experiences with these so far. After being told that 1.9“ or 4.83 cm wide tyres should work and still provide enough clearance, I quickly settled on the WTB Sendero 650b × 47 mm pneus.

The result was this sexy setup:

The wheel set I found was an older pair DT Swiss M1700 MTB wheels with a decent internal rim width and the Ratchet Free Hub System. There was a bit of a setback when I found out that the last person to service the hind wheel didn’t just fail to remove a massive radial run-out, they also centred the rim over the hub body and not over the axle, resulting in a rim that was too far on the left. After getting this fixed for a good amount of money, putting the tyres on tubeless and the wheels into the frame, I saw that it was a tight fit but doable with no tyre rub on the frame or fork.

Well, that changed after the first 15 km of singletrack riding on Saturday. I pushed the tyres the way you would and to my great dismay, they expanded/deformed in a way that caused tyre rub on the left chain stay twice in one revolution on a perfectly true back wheel.

What I’m left with is the choice to either sell the wheel set and tyres again or to find slightly smaller but equally gnarly tyres for the wheels. The problem here, of course, is that smaller tyres also mean an even smaller wheel diameter and a further lowering of the bottom bracket, something that already took getting used to going from 700×40c to 584×47c on the Litespeed T5 Gravel frame I’m riding.

There’s one silver lining to all of this, albeit a fact that left me with a very substantial urge to slam my head into my desk repeatedly because I could’ve saved myself the trouble of buying another wheel set:
I started checking out which 700×40c rubber is available that would give me better grip on wet forest floor than the Donnelly X’Plor MSO I love so much. I found a number of options, the WTB Nano 40 being the supposed best among them when set up tubeless. The only issue is that WTB recommends running these tyres on a rim with at least 20 mm internal width and my [DT Swiss CR1600 Spline db](DT Swiss - CR 1600 SPLINE® 23) wheels are 22 mm wide externally … … … or so I thought.
Turns Out ™ I had misread the specs of the wheels because the spec sheet of the bike I bought them on didn’t specify whether the 22 mm were internal or external width figures. Long story short, they have an internal width of 22 mm, meaning they are right in the goldilocks zone width not just for the WTB Nano 40 but for many other ~ 40 mm wide, supple gravel tyres.

I’m likely going to try and get my hands on the Nanos if I can find them for a decent price and maybe, just maybe I’ll get my wish of a gravel bike capable of some gnarlier paths but still fast when I need it to be.

Goodbye 650b wheels, I hardly knew ye.

Last week I came across an article by Geoffrey A. Fowler in the Washington Post titled „Everyone’s AirPods will die. We’ve got the trick to replacing them.“ (thanks to Dave Mark of The Loop for bringing it up).

Sadly, the title is not just slightly clickbait-y, it also belies the sensible discussion about the viability of AirPods the article contains. Fowler goes into detail about how and when the batteries in AirPods tend to stop performing and then dives into an analysis of the economic circumstances and environmental implications of a product like the AirPods.

Fowler quotes a rule by Kyle Wiens, CEO of the repair website iFixit.com, that has stuck with me for the past few days:

The life span of an expensive, resource-intensive gadget shouldn’t be limited to the life span of one consumable component. You wouldn’t buy an electric toothbrush where you couldn’t replace the brush. Or a car with glued-on tires.

Sadly and also predictably, the new AirPods Pro are made to be just as disposable as their predecessors (and just like any other pair of wireless earbuds on the market right now).

I bought my AirPods a little over two years ago. These little things are a brilliant gadget with decent sound and when pairing works as it should, they’re the pinnacle of convenience. They’ve also been in almost daily use since I purchased them then and the battery life is accordingly bad at this point: I get less than 1.5 hours of listening or calls out of them nowadays.
When I purchased them, I knew full well that the battery was not replaceable and to be honest, I’m kind of mad at myself that I put convenience over the longevity, repairability, and recyclability of a device. Typically everything I buy needs to be either repairable and if for some reason that’s not feasible, it has be long-lasting and recyclable.
Case in point: in writing this article I remembered that I bought a pair of EarPods a couple of days after they were released in September 2012 and that pair lasted me almost six years — yes, I treat my earphones carefully.

I’m going to keep using my AirPods until the finally give out or rather until the battery life is so bad that it negates any kind of convenience these truly wireless earphones offer and I’m going to go back to wired earphones with an in-line remote for casual listening. I still have two pairs of completely new EarPods that came with my iPhones over the years in a drawer (one with the lightning plug and one with a standard 3.5 mm plug), or I might splurge on the Campfire Audio Comet.

Two comprehensive reviews of the Quoc Gran Tourer have cropped up on sites that I frequently read.

Quoc Gran Tourer Review: Rocks, Gravel, Dust, And Puddles
by Cass Gilbert on Bikepacking.com

A Summer of Riding in the Quoc Gran Tourer All-Terrain Gravel Bike Shoes
by John Watson on The Radavist

I’ve been using the Quoc Gran Tourer for over a year now and up until I saw these two reviews, I had thought of writing my own but I found that the assessment of the shoes by these two persons mirrors my own closely enough that there are only two things I would add:

1. Fit wise, I have moderately wide feet and I appreciate having ample room in the toe box. The Gran Tourers deliver in this area, all the while the lacing system allows me to perfectly tie the shoes so they’re comfortable yet stay firmly on my feet all day long.
2. It takes quite a bit for water to seep into these shoes but once they’re wet, it takes very long for them to properly dry.

I’ve taken these shoes through quite a lot yet they still show only minimal signs of wear on the upper and they’ve only gotten more comfortable with use. I’m very satisfied with the shoes.

When I built up my gravel bike, Battle Cat, I decided to stick with the Canyon H17 Al Ergo handlebar at least for a while because I wasn‘t keen on re-wrapping a new bar and I had, up until then, been pretty happy with it. Recent longer outings with more singletrack sections made me curious about the flared drop bars that have become increasingly popular among gravel and cross cyclists. After quite a bit of research, I decided to buy the Salsa Cowchipper Deluxe.

Yesterday I went out for the first proper ride and the route I picked was a mix of gravel tracks, forest and wine yard paths, and some broken asphalt roads. All of it wet, slippery, loose, and muddy from three days of nearly constant heavy rain.

On the first kilometre everything felt strange. The suddenly angled hoods and brake levers, the flare of the bars (24°), the different transition from the flat bar to the hood to the drops, and all of it combined with the Tune Dahu Skin bar tape.
This completely evaporated once I went up the first singletrack climb. The path was parts muddy, parts wet slippery slate pieces that required careful line choice going up and equally careful weight distribution so as not to lose traction riding on 700×40c Donnelly X’Plor MSO tyres already at 3.5 bar.
The flared bars allowed me to get into a wide and low stance, staying seated the whole time. The first fast decent on a muddy path increased the feeling of control on the bike and sections that I would have typically ridden with my hands on the hoods, I took in the drops because the reduced distance between hoods and drops, combined with the overall different shape of the assembly had me riding less hunched over.

So far so good. I’m going for a longer gravel ride on the weekend that will hopefully be less wet and I’m looking forward to seeing how I feel about the handlebar after 40+ km in the saddle compared to a quick 16 km ride.

In your typical cyclist’s quest to simplify my setup and reduce the things that I carry on rides, I went out to look for a compact, pocketable pump with an integrated pressure gauge. There are a number of options, but none of them have had particularly good reviews – at least not judging by what I was able to find. Most annoyingly, very few reviews even consider the accuracy of the integrated gauge, stating that it’s good enough for (off-)road side repairs.

The Topeak ROADIE DA G is a fairly recent release and being happy with a few other of their products, I decided to give it a go.

Basics

The pump pushes air into the tyre when pushing and pulling on the barrel, which, theortically should help fill the tyre more quickly. The barrel is made out of aluminium, other parts of the pump are made from shock-resistant plastic. Being a road bike pump, it’s equipped with a Presta valve head.

Thoughts

I’ve used this pump fairly extensively at this point and all things considered, it’s a good pump. It’s compact, doesn’t stick out of a jersey pocket too far and even fits into some saddle bags. The included bottlge cage mount is solid and has held up across a number of hard gravel rides already.

I was very happy to find that the pressure gauge is quite accurate. Comparing it with a dedicated digital gauge and the gauge in my floor pump, it yielded almost identical results when I aimed to hit 𝑥.0 Bar or 𝑥.𝑥 Bar on the gauge. This allowes me to much more accurately and quickly get my tyres up to the desired pressure than doing the “pump, pump, pump, detach pump, attach gauge, check pressure, detach gauge, pump some more, check again” spiel.

One thing I consider a downside is the pump’s barrel getting very hot when reaching pressures of 3.2 Bar and up. I’m guessing it’s fine when you’re wearing gloves but more than a couple of times when nearing 4 Bar, I had to stop pumping to let the barrel cool down a bit.

Suitability for 700×40c tyres

The bigger issue from my perspective is the suitability for tyres typically used on gravel bikes. Both my bikes use 700×40c and I tend to vary the pressure depending on the terrain I ride on. Getting this kind of pneu to a pressure beyond 3.5 Bar is hard work and both the pump and I struggle with it.

This issue isn’t limited to the ROADIE DA G, however. Right now, most manufacturers of pumps distinguish between high-volume pumps for mountain bike tyres, and high-pressure pumps for road bikes. Tyres for gravel bikes/adventure bikes/bicycle touring fall somewhere in between and I haven’t yet seen any pump that delivers good results for 700×36c–700×50c tyres.

This feat by Simon and James of GCN is truly something. About two weeks ago I did my hardest ride, yet, burning 4,200+ calories in the process. I was wiped out after and it took three days for my legs to properly recover.

My friend Nik retweeted this Twitter thread by Joanna Schroeder a couple of days ago and it stuck with me. A more or less coordinated but definitely intense campaign has been going on online for a number of years now that primes young males to fall for and consider right wing, fascist, hateful ideologies and the groups that propagate them their only safe haven, the only place that understands them. This exploits a pervasive culture of toxic masculinity and preys on young males in their fragile emotional states, driven by their craving for recognition and acceptance.

The thread explores a number of avenues are used by hate groups and right wing radicals and proposes a few ways to combat this. Please read it and if you’re inclined follow the various links to similar research and journalistic coverage of this radicalization campaign.

Do you have white teenage sons?

Listen up.

I've been watching my boys' online behavior & noticed that social media and vloggers are actively laying groundwork in white teens to turn them into alt-right/white supremacists.

Here's how:

— joanna schroeder (@iproposethis) August 13, 2019

Mädchen bis 14 Jahren sollen kein Kopftuch tragen dürfen, weil sie zu jung sind, um "selbst zu entscheiden".

Starker Vorstoß von der Christlich Demokratischen Union. Es kann also nur noch eine Frage der Zeit sein, bis Säuglinge nicht mehr getauft werden dürfen.

— Caroline (@keyflake) April 9, 2018

Everything wrong with Fox News in one video pic.twitter.com/MhnApiQ3pG

— NowThis Impact (@nowthisimpact) March 16, 2018

@RikerGoogling pic.twitter.com/67Z8cDcjoA

— Steve McCabe (@smccabe83) March 2, 2018

Taking advantage of some down time on the bridge #rikergoogling #spock #livelongandprosper #startrek #averagedayactionfigures #actionfigures #90s #google #toys #toystargram pic.twitter.com/rvhctAZWKa

— Steve McCabe (@smccabe83) March 2, 2018

Please share my #Charlottesville toon. Thx! @GottaLaff @co_rapunzel4 @MaggieJordanACN @laloalcaraz @reddroostermann @JuddApatow @GeorgeTakei pic.twitter.com/ur5L227lP4

— Ed Hall (@halltoons) August 13, 2017

The White (Supremacist) House - Latest @guardian cartoon...#Charlottesville #Trump pic.twitter.com/ZNGCynzyRQ

— Ben Jennings (@BJennings90) August 13, 2017

For those of you outside the US, this version should be available. :) https://t.co/PxXmui65RO

— Holly Amos (@hollyamos22) May 17, 2017

I reached my daily move goal for 200 days in a row. #AppleWatch pic.twitter.com/ePufLxpdm4

— 🐘 @mangochutney@micro.blog (@mangochutney) April 5, 2017

First attempt at teaching Bijou a patience trick

* July 21st, 1951
✝ August 11th, 2014

The 23GB Surface Pro

The Verge’s Tom Warren:

A company spokesperson has confirmed to The Verge that the 64GB edition of Surface Pro will have 23GB of free storage out of the box.

“Pro.”

On John Moltz’s Very Nice Website

I want Microsoft to succeed with their Surface tablets. Badly.But this is not how to market a new flagship device.

Andrew Kunesh at Macgasm:Belkin has just dropped eSATA support as well as the price tag of its Thunderbolt Express Dock. The price has been dropped back down to its original price of $299. Belkin’s Thunderbolt Express Dock was quietly introduced in September of 2011 and made an official debut as a prototype at CES 2012. However, in June of last year, the device was changed a bit and had its price raised by $100. Fortunately, Belkin has just announced that it will be bringing the price of the device down by dropping eSATA support.The ‘temporary’ price point of $ 399,– was absolutely ludicrous, but the old/new one isn’t significantly less stupid.Sure, Thunderbolt is still a niche interface and will continue to be as long as manufacturers don’t decide to release more products for it — oh, and drop the price for cables to a sensible level. As of now it’s pretty much a technology for professionals.So, with the current range of Apple computers in mind, what’s the target group for this device?Macbook Pro users get at least one Thunderbolt port, two USB3.0 ports, an audio output and some kind of digital video output for their money.Mac mini and iMac users get tons of ports on their computers, too.What remains are MacBook Air buyers who for some reason need more than two USB3.0 ports at the best possible transfer rates (meaning that a decent USB3.0 hub somehow isn’t good enough) and FireWire 800 and an Ethernet jack and audio ports (I’m interested to know how these audio ports compare to even the cheapest USB audio card).Belkin is making a mistake, because even professionals will think twice before buying an accessory this expensive, when the computers able to leverage the power of the Thunderbolt Express Dock are usually a) pretty expensive from the get-go and b) mostly feature a decent range of useful and fast ports by default.Continuing this train of thought, you have to consider that Apple offers the Thunderbolt Display for $ 999,–. The latter is not only a decent display for the price (compared to displays with similar specifications), but it’s next iteration will most likely have USB3.0 as well. Now imagine a user who plans to buy a good display and also wants to leverage the benefits of the Thunderbolt port on his or her machine. The price difference between a good display + the Thunderbolt Express Dock, versus the Thunderbolt Display isn’t very big.The niche for the Thunderbolt Express Dock is tiny and becomes only a bit bigger if you include older machines (like the 2011 Mac mini I’m writing this on). For those it constitutes an upgrade of sorts. The benefits from my perspective would be the additional FireWIre 800 port and, most importantly, three fast USB3.0 ports. Still, it’s hellishly expensive and costs about a third of what I paid for my top tier 2011 Mac mini.I’m really curious about the cost of production per unit; it would give a hint as to whether Belkin can’t price this thing lower, or if they don’t want to — the latter of which would be perfectly fine, stupid, but fine.If I had to price this device for the consumer (or even the prosumer), I wouldn’t cross the $ 199,– mark if I could help it.

Here it is: http://t.co/5rupu21Y

Go to that link on an iPhone or iPad. Open in Safari.

Be amazed.

NASA is fucking awesome.

— Joel Housman (@joelhousman) August 15, 2012

This machine is a gigantic, high resolution, unibody middle finger to PC makers.

"this is the trouble that women cause and I therefore try to avoid hiring them" http://t.co/gmUtDaLm

— Nadyne Richmond (@nadyne) May 4, 2012

A quote from the post:

David Chartier: Apple’s fall from grace - BGRchartier:

I don’t usually link to Cult of Mac, but this article merits an exception. Mike Elgan, former editor of the Windows Magazine realises that he has —slowly but steadily— become an Apple fanboy.

In this blog post Craig Hockenberry comments on the latest developments in the software licensing and patent business.