This week: a smattering of thoughts on the parts of remote work no one talks about, screen time usefulness, iPadOS gestures, coincidences, and my pitch for you to wear better pants.
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Top Posts
Leica Sofort 2June 13, 2024
Grand Seiko SBGX261February 23, 2023
Casio Duro MDV-106 Re-ReviewDecember 15, 2022
Recent Articles
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Member Journal — 9/9/19
That thing when you don’t know how to remote work so you turn to me for the stuff people don’t wan to talk about…
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Spinnaker Fleuss
A really great value for a casual watch with a waterproof leather strap.
I picked this watch up on Reddit for a really low price, and decided to give it a whirl as my go to weekend watch. I’ve had it I for about a month, and am moving on, but not because of any flaws with the watch itself. It’s pretty neat, and a heck of a deal.
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Armida A6
A really nice Explorer homage, which comes tantalizingly close to being my everyday watch.
I have been looking for a watch to compliment my others — something to wear 95% of the time from office to home. Simple, versatile, and basically what is referred to as a ‘tool watch’ — I always wanted to stay under $700. So I ended up getting this Armida A6, an homage to the Rolex Explorer which is currently very popular. The watch is fantastic, but it’s its own thing and ultimately, sadly, it doesn’t fit the bill for what I want.
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Member Journal — 9/2/19
In mildly interesting items from this past week, we shall explore many thoughts on iPads today.
This week: full iPad segregation, self-improvement the glorified hobby, Speedmaster wearers amirite, iconic watches, and Justin Blanton is blogging again.
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Benchmade Mini-Griptillian
Perhaps the best knife option if you oddly only want to own one knife.
I’ve been needing to review this knife for a while. This is especially bad since I love Benchmade knifes and think they are one of the best knife companies out there — eat your hearts out Spyderco fans, Benchmade is superior. I’ll give you a simple reason: most Benchmade knives are ambidextrous, most Spyderco knives are made for right handed people.
Anyways, the ‘mini-grip’ as it is known is often heralded as one of the better, if not best, everyday carry knife options out there. It’s versatile, inexpensive (relatively), and well made. Let’s see how it stacks up…
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Synik vs GR1 vs CPL 24
Let’s talk about which backpack is the best for certain things, and then get to the point: your heart wants what it wants.
Many have been asking me to compare Tom Bihn’s new bag against the GR1 and the CPL 24 I recently reviewed, but those 1:1 comparisons can make it hard to remain in perspective of all the bags out there. So I think a better way to look at this is in the common context of use cases and what is best for those. I’ve broken this down to four categories, and let’s talk about which is best for each before we wrap up with an overall look at things. I’ve also limited this to just the Synik 22/30, CPL 24, and GR1 21/26 as those are the best backpacks on the market currently. ((Prove me wrong, seriously.))
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Member’s Journal — 8/26/19
That thing when you buy the grossest sounding Kolache, but then have a life changing experience eating it.
This week: toggling Bluetooth, vibrating to keystrokes, what is harmful, a potpourri of computing notes, and 10 things about Houston.
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Member Journal — 8/19/19
That thing where I point out why Wirecutter has gone down hill, and more.
This week: why I no longer trust The Wirecutter, socks for sock less shoes, my thoughts on paper and pen note taking, Keyboard Maestro 9, iOS 13 thing I love, and Gruber wakes up.
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Tom Bihn’s New Synik 22 and 30
Oh my, we have some seriously fantastic bags on our hands. Warm up your credit cards.
Note: Tom Bihn sent me these bags to gather early feedback, and allow me time to review them fully.
For almost a decade, Tom Bihn’s Synapse lineup of backpacks have found themselves among the top performers for true backpack nerds. I had my father review it last year and I posted my review a while later, but despite the fact that those are all recent posts — it’s been around.
The chief request of Tom Bihn over all those years of success with the Synapse has been: to make it a clam shell opening. You see with backpacks there’s three camps of people: those whose prefer top-loading backpacks (roughly what the Synapse is, but more Shadow Guide), those who prefer a full opening clam shell like the GORUCK GR1, and of course there are those with no preference who don’t actually qualify as backpack nerds. The Synapse always sat a bit in the middle, never quite satisfying any one group, but roughly working for every group. In that way it was clever.
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Member Journal — 8/12/19
Talking a lot about iPads this week, come gather round.
This week: a reckoning for activity trackers, yep, iOS 13 reactions, iPad OS thoughts, my iPad workflow update, and lax enforcement.
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GORUCK GR2 On Sale
While the GR1 (even in black) has hit $295, the GR2 is at an insanely low price of $355. I have a 34L already but I took this opportunity to pick up a 40L. Can’t beat that price. If you have a 26L GR1, get the 40. Otherwise get the 34L, fantastic bag.
While the GR1 (even in black) has hit $295, the GR2 is at an insanely low price of $355. I have a 34L already but I took this opportunity to pick up a 40L. Can’t beat that price.
If you have a 26L GR1, get the 40. Otherwise get the 34L, fantastic bag.
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Members Journal — 8/5/19
I still use a Mac at work form time to time, but that’s mostly Outlook’s fault.
This week: where does my iPad usage stand, what is an expert, social media and moderating it, anxiety driven apps, and a touch of Silicon Valley ‘disruption’.
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Whoop and Activity Trackers
Whoop there it is.
As members are aware, I recently ordered a Whoop 3.0 activity tracker. This marks the first time I am dipping my toes back into activity trackers since I gave up my Apple Watch. So it is worth talking about what my hopes are, before we dive into this device/service and ultimately wrap up with general thoughts on activity trackers all together.
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Apple Siri Eavesdropping Puts Millions Of Users At Risk
This is not cool, and I am a little shocked at Apple’s non-chalant response: The firm told The Guardian: “A small portion of Siri requests are analyzed to improve Siri and dictation. User requests are not associated with the user’s Apple ID. Siri responses are analyzed in secure facilities and all reviewers are under the…
This is not cool, and I am a little shocked at Apple’s non-chalant response:
The firm told The Guardian: “A small portion of Siri requests are analyzed to improve Siri and dictation. User requests are not associated with the user’s Apple ID. Siri responses are analyzed in secure facilities and all reviewers are under the obligation to adhere to Apple’s strict confidentiality requirements.”
Look, this is par for the course. In order for these systems to get better, they need to analyze what you say and humans need to hear it. What gets me is the fix for this:
Unfortunately, it is much easier to control the Amazon Echo and Google Home devices. The best way to prevent Siri from listening to and sometimes accidentally recording conversations is to disable it entirely.
You don’t often see that “it is much easier to control” something from Google or Amazon, do you? That’s typically where Apple shines. I would expect a simple toggle in Siri to turn off this transmission even if it were opt-out. That’s what really baffles me. Apple needs to jump on that fix.
I don’t normally write linked list posts like this anymore, except weekly as part of the members journal. You should consider subscribing and seeing what it is all about.
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Member Journal — 7/30/19
Swearing is no more, watch tsk continues, lots of shady companies.
This week: lack of swearing now, EDC cult, Amazon is testing my trust, Instagram is shady, and watches watches watches.
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I’m Done With Food Delivery Services
The dirty secret you are supporting by using these apps.
We can blame this one on Postmates, but really it was only the straw that broke the camels back for me. Uber Eats, Door Dash, Postmates, Grubhub — all of them are completely shit services which are actually pretty sketchy and worrisome, so I am done with them.
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Member Journal — 7/22/19
Bags, watches, Instagram hate, corporate iPhone life, and a few more things.
This week: something is annoying but the only option, Ray-Bans, woes of Facebook’s Instagram, is cloud storage secure (no), speedy software, I got two new watches and my head hurts now, and what bags I actually use on a day to day basis.
Enjoy
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The Gray I Know
I wrote the first part of this shortly before I left Washington state, the rest here in Texas. It’s gray outside my window right now. The type of gray that only people who live in the Pacific Northwest for extended time know. The type of gray that once lasted for over 60 days straight, no…
I wrote the first part of this shortly before I left Washington state, the rest here in Texas.
It’s gray outside my window right now. The type of gray that only people who live in the Pacific Northwest for extended time know. The type of gray that once lasted for over 60 days straight, no sun, just gray.
It is also wet outside. It’s not raining, nor does it ever rain the way Hollywood depicts it, the water is just present on the ground, in its near permanent state during the 9 months of the year where things are, well, gray.
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Member Journal for 7/15/19
This week, the struggle is real, but at least I found the best variant of the GR1.
Wait, half way through summer already? Jeebus. This week: there are two iPad issues, I got a white backpack, I got an all black knife, where Amazon doesn’t win, my pursuits of fewer, and the remaining items for sale with a discount…
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Big Zoom Security Flaw
If you run the Mac app, I’d delete it. Zoom is way too calm about this.
If you run the Mac app, I’d delete it. Zoom is way too calm about this.