When I last talked about pens, I talked about my Machine Era pen, which is brass and heavy. Today it’s about the Namisu X-01 in brass, which is amazingly heavier than the last.
Category: Articles
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The Indie Blogging Problem: Money
I’ve been writing this site for long enough now that I’ve seen a few shifts in the blogging community itself. When I started writing here, people were starting to jump on the band wagon of blogging in force. I read a plethora of sites, all publishing nearly daily (like this one), written by people trying to make *it*. Trying to strike out full time with their writing in some way. And all of these sites had the same model: small advertisement from something like Carbon, The Deck, or Fusion and weekly RSS feed sponsorships. This is the ‘Daring Fireball Model’ of monetizing a blog. Hell, even some of them sold t-shirts every year, same as John Gruber.
I used this model too. I made roughly between $400-600 a month from the small ad (I think $600 was the highest I ever got to on that) and charged from $250-$550 per week for RSS Sponsors (near the end I just started cranking up the price to see what the fuck would happen). It took me at least one full day per week to manage all of this. It took away from my writing and my focus. And then in 2012 it started becoming a race to the bottom, because while my site was still seeing large growth, the advertisers were unwilling to pay more, and in fact wanted to pay me *less* for the same.
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First Impressions: Triple Aught Design’s Context Organizer
When Triple Aught Design previewed the [Context Organizer](https://tripleaughtdesign.com/shop/context-organizer/) on Instagram, I was sold on the fact that I needed to try it. The Context Organizer is part Admin Organizer (a term for those military inspired, MOLLE laden, pouches you see strapped to bags) and part DOPP Kit. What appealed to me was a few things:
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My EDC Setups
I’ve recently had a good reason to pull out the EDC setups I keep (which turns out to be four) and go through them. I’ve long been a person who wanted to have each bag ready to go, so I didn’t need to think about adding the basics to them. However, the issue with that is that it can be quite expensive to duplicate all your gear, which means that some of the bags end up with items in them that I don’t like as much as the others.
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RUCKPLATE Mod (video)
Quick video on a modification to my RUCKPLATE for the Rucker 1.0.
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GORUCK GR1 21L v 26L
I’ve written far too many words about the 26L GR1, or GR1s in general, so this likely is the last for quite some time. Since I’ve now reviewed and spent time with the 21L GR1, I thought a direct comparison between the two was in order.
Let’s dive into these two bags…
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Smartphones, Sanity, Health, and Stuff
I’ve read no fewer than a dozen articles in the past two months ([example](https://medium.com/personal-growth/smartphones-harm-your-productivity-more-than-you-think-62e105655992), [another](https://apple.news/A4U-BJJSFTgm_kmPR5KUF3w), [another](https://apple.news/AGKmUWwpxP4OUP4__RHH1og), [another](http://www.lifehack.org/656665/external-content-6), [yep](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/11/the-binge-breaker/501122/), [another](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/jan/01/antisocial-media-why-decided-cut-back-facebook-instagram), and [another](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/17/technology/apple-addiction-iphone.html)), all on a very similar topic: smartphones are addicting, they are the new smoking, and this is a serious health problem which needs to be addressed. It’s very hard to decouple a few items which I keep seeing, and keep in mind that I know next to nothing about the science and psychology of all of this — but it doesn’t seem the other writers do either, so yeah.
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GORUCK 21L GR1
As you know, I am a huge GORUCK nerd, and for a while now I’ve repeatedly told anyone who would listen “buy a GR1” (if and when they needed a backpack — hell even when they didn’t need one). It’s the best backpack money can buy. But there are two variants: 26L and 21L. For a very long time GORUCK gave simple guidance about this: under 6 feet tall, get the 21L, 6 feet tall, or taller: get the 26L. I stayed with that advice as well, but the truth is far more complicated, and now GORUCK themselves seems to be downplaying that advice a little more lately, adding in that sometimes you want more or less space. At the bottom of the description they currently state: “When in doubt, go with the 21L.”
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iPadding: Kids Edition
Two things of note about my kids’ iPad setups…
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Filson Tablet Briefcase
When I first bought my beloved Filson Original Briefcase, I was torn between getting that and the newer, Tablet Briefcase which Filson had on offer. (I shall now note, that the Tablet briefcase, as of right now, is no longer available from Filson. You can however find it from some third party retailers for great prices.) I ended up the with Original, because I wanted an original. When I saw these Tablet briefcases on steep discounts at the end of 2017, I picked one up as well.
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iPad Productivity Report — A New Stand
For over a year now my go to iPad stand has been the Yohann stands ([reviewed here](https://brooksreview.net/2016/12/yohann-stand/)). They are beautful, and functional. There’s only one flaw with them: they sit the iPad screen very low. On a daily basis when typing this hasn’t been and issue for me as the screens are high enough that I am in no physical pain using them.
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Social Media, and Me
A few nights ago, I posted on Micro.blog (which cross posts to Twitter like magic) the following:
Taking a break from Twitter for 2018 and such. Micro.blog is much more sane.
I had not given it any more thought than that one post. There was no master plan, other than the specific choice of saying “break” instead of something more dramatic like “deleting”. After I posted that, I went ahead and removed the Twitter apps on my iPhone and iPad Pro 10.5 — but not on my 12.9”. The only reason I keep that copy on that iPad is because there are a few people who regularly DM me, and I’d like not to cut them out of my life.
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GORUCK GR1 26L v 34L GR2
I’ve now had the 34L GR2 for some time, and I’ve taken it all over with me. One thing which is common knowledge about the 34L GR2 is that it is essentially (though slightly taller) a GR1 26L with an extra compartment added on — making it deeper.
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App Review: Pocket
*The membership for 2018 is shifting a bit, to include posts which are not strictly iPad Productivity Reports. There will still be at least one member post per week, however it won’t always be a specific iPad post.*
I mentioned a few weeks back that I was in the market for a new read later app. I have a real need for something more robust than Safari Reading List as it’s proven to be too basic.
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Steinhart Ocean One Vintage Military
When I wrote about my search for a new watch, I can honestly tell you that my search started with this watch, and I ended up buying this watch despite trying to convince myself of many others. This watch pays homage to a mil-spec Submariner which Rolex only made a few dozen of — today those sell for over $150,000. So, given that, at about $450 this watch is a steal, and it has better water resistance ratings than the original Rolex.
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Brief Note on Packing Cubes for GR1s
I’ve been asked a ton about the new GORUCK Packing Cubes. Since I have both I figured I’d share some initial thoughts. All pictures are taken with the cubes in a 21L GR1, the 26L will just have more room at the top of the bag.
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Some First Impressions
As we head into the new year, I have quite a few items I am currently testing, which I doubt that I’ll be ready to review for a while. Instead, here’s some previews and first impressions of items I’m testing.
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iPad Productivity Report — 12/18/17
This is going to be the last “report” of the year and I’ll resume on January 1st, 2018 — I want to thank all of your for being a member and reading these weekly reports. This has been a fun challenge to push for this year.
This week I have a smattering of things for you: new site feature, membership update, a look at my morning paper, some thoughts on OLED, my thoughts on iA’s new typeface for writing. Let’s get to it.
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GORUCK Rucker versus GORUCK GR1
As I wrote about, my GR1 started to smell terrible from all the working out with it, so I decided it would be worthwhile to get a dedicated workout GORUCK. Naturally, I went with a Rucker as this is specifically what they are designed for.
A Rucker is essentially a GR1 without the laptop compartment, without the internal MOLLE, but added strap to secure a ruck plate as well as a hydration bladder retention strap. Basically, this is the bag you want to get if you intend to never carry a laptop, you ruck, or you want to hike.
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iPad Productivity Report — 12/11/17
A quick look into how I manage a wishlist for myself, and a not on read later services.
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