10 years of Bicycle Quarterly

 I'm much too cheap to pay $44/year for a subscription to Bicycle Quarterly. Their back issues are also expensive. But someone offered me about 10 years in exchange for about $40 after shipping, so I jumped in and read it all. This is not the intended way for people to read the magazine, but I figured it'll give me some insight as to what the magazine's all about. I was not wrong.

First of all, Bicycle Quarterly should be renamed "Jan Heine's Quarterly Opinions, Reviews and Randonenuring Adventures." Nearly every article in the magazine is written by Jan Heine or one of his friends, with a few scant submissions from other people here and there. To my surprise, most of the photos in the magazine are pretty bad. After reading a few of the trip reports, I realized that it's because Jan Heine is not a bicycle tourist. He's a Randonneur, specializing in events where you ride a long distance with little or no sleep to a schedule. Well, if that's your goal you're not going to try to take beautiful pictures, and in fact, at night it's unlikely your photos are going to be any good anyway.

I have no idea who the magazine is aimed for. There's always an article introducing some new technique (like jumping curbs) to the reader, but I imagine most people who read the magazine already know how to do most of the things he describes. There are reviews of bicycles, but they tend to be of reviews of bicycles that are set up like Jan Heine's own favorite bikes. For instance, all bicycles are reviewed with 650b wheels (and 42mm tires), even bikes that would come in 700c sizes as well. The interesting thing is that the market for 650b tires seems to have been shrinking. When your preferred size is losing favor in the market you might want to rethink pushing it to your audience as you could lose credibility. (Having said that, I'm still doing friction shifting and rim brakes, so maybe his audience is like that but about 650b wheels)

Heine talks a lot about tires. Wider is better, and supple tires are best. The issue is that you have a hard time finding really supple tires at wider than about 32mm tires, so he formed another company (Compass Cycles, now Rene Herse) to supply those tires. The problem with his tire testing is that the sample sizes are really small, and the fact that his tires cost more than $90 for the extralight models mean that most people aren't going to be riding them.

Heine also talks a lot about frames and what makes a frame "plane." The term comes from boats where a hull could rise out of the water and "plane" and reduce drag, but his use of it in cycling bears no resemblance to what happens on a boat. Basically, the claim here is that certain frames under certain riders, will flex in such a way that the cyclist can sync with the frame, allowing the frame flex to return energy to propelling the bike up the road during pedal dead spots. If I was unhappy with his tire testing methodology, his statement about planing and cycling comes with next to no evidence. It's all subjective, and there's no attempt to generalize his experience for any other rider (who doesn't have the benefit of hundreds of different bikes to ride, including many custom frames) to figure out what planes and what doesn't. He makes general statements like: "Use lighter tubing for top tubes and down tubes, and stiffer chainstays". Go ahead and build a few bikes like that and figure out which ones planes and which ones do not. Don't have the budget for it? Me neither.

There's an obsession with "rinko" cycling in Japan. (No surprise, Heine's wife is Japanese) Here's the deal, I've ridden in Japan, and it's decent cycling, but nowhere close to what you can get in the alps, where the train systems in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy do not insist that you have to take your bike apart and stuff it into a bag to get on a train.

There's a time when he and his wife tries a really old tandem built by Rene Herse in the alps. But they have crappy gearing and don't do any of the rough stuff. It's all very shallow, because unlike the single bike reviews, Heine has never tried a modern tandem with gears low enough to climb steep stuff with his wife.

All in all, I'm glad I wasn't paying $44/year for a subscription (chances are I would have given up after a year when I noticed nearly everything in the magazine was written by Jan Heine). I'm not sure a typical cyclist reading this magazine will get much out of it, and I've already summarized 10 years of articles for you.

Review: How Medicine Works and When It Doesn't

 How Medicine Works and When It Doesn't is a book by Yale doctor and physician Perry Wilson. It is readable, funny in many parts, and well-written. For instance, he describes a surgeon's interaction with a family of a patient who's undergone surgery:

I remember listening to one of the cardiothoracic surgeons talking to a family after a large aortic arch repair. The patient had done well but was still unconscious, on the breathing machine. The surgeon, an expert by any definition, explained that the surgery was essentially flawless; in a few days, the patient would be up and around, out of the hospital within two weeks. “Thank God,” his wife said. “No, no. You do not thank God,” the surgeon said. “You thank me.” (pg 245)

I laughed out loud reading about it.  The book first describes what is very basic to scientists: correlation is not causation, and bayesian reasoning. He then points out that because of these problems the best way to identify causation is through randomized controlled trials. Even those are subject to errors and occasionally outright fraud.

He points out that even the best studies and the best outcomes from clinical trials of a new drug has to be done on a population statistical level, which means that in many cases, there's a ton of uncertainty as to whether or not a new drug or treatment will help you:

There is no “one thing” that will help you live longer. There are healthy things, and less healthy things, and unhealthy things. People who adopt multiple, broadly healthy lifestyle choices—from what they eat and don’t eat, to how much exercise they get, to the kinds of activities they take part in—live longer. The problem is no one wants to click on an article saying MAKE THESE 30 CHANGES IN YOUR LIFE TO LIVE LONGER. It is not easy to make thirty lifestyle changes. We all want simple solutions to complex problems. (pg 61)

Just as in investing there's no market for "get rich slow" when there are plenty of people touting "get rich quick" solutions. 

What makes medications special is not the fact that they are so incredibly good at saving lives, but that they are easy to use. You can’t change your age, and quitting smoking is tough, but popping a pill is a straightforward action that doesn’t demand too much change in your usual habits. The sobering truth is that drugs operate on the margins—they have an effect, but they aren’t as impactful as we like to think they are.  (pg. 139)

 Wilson even addresses the elephant in the room, which is the American healthcare system, notorious for being inscrutable, heartless, profit-driven, and liable to drive even insured folks into bankruptcy:

there is no industry that pays more money to Congress than the pharmaceutical industry. We may not have the kind of money pharma does, but we do have one thing it doesn’t have: the votes. I have never been a single-issue voter, but if you were to pick a single issue to vote on, I suggest you make it the one that has the most special-interest money thrown at it. That money tells me that the industry is scared—and while Congress members do like their drug money, they like keeping their jobs more. And drug pricing reform is incredibly popular. In a 2021 Kaiser Family Foundation poll, 88 percent of respondents favored allowing the federal government to negotiate what they will pay for specific drugs, including 77 percent of Republicans and 96 percent of Democrats. (pg 183)

Wilson acknowledges the huge amount of wasted money in the system, including on administrators who do not actually provide any healthcare:

In 2019, Healthline crunched the numbers and found that there were ten healthcare administrators for every one doctor in the United States. These administrators do not provide patient care, but they supposedly improve care. Most administrators argue they are making the system more streamlined, more efficient. But there is not much data to support that. The Harvard Business Review looked at the rapid growth of healthcare administration positions and concluded that the only meaningful difference for patients that correlated with increased administrative roles was a reduction in thirty-day hospital readmission from 19 percent to 17.8 percent. HBR also noted that this reduction happened to occur just when the Affordable Care Act imposed penalties on hospitals based on readmission rates.  (pg. 218)

 What about the frequently made statement that our doctors, nurses are overpaid and that's why we have the most expensive medical system in the world? Wilson debunks that too:

About 20 percent of healthcare spending in the United States goes to “physician services,” but physician salaries are only a fraction of that—just 8.6 percent, the lowest percentage of any Western country save Sweden. Since the majority of physicians now work for hospital systems or corporations, that money goes to headquarters and is parceled out from there. In other words, even if you slashed doctor salaries in half, you would save only 4 percent of the Medicare budget. (pg. 220)

Needless to say I found myself highlighting paragraph after paragraph of this book, taking note of new concepts such as NNT. I came away with this book knowing more than when I started it, which means that I recommend it to anyone. 

Re-read: V for Vendetta

 In the wake of the murder of Brian Thompson by a vigilante I had to re-read V for Vendetta, Alan Moore's treatise on totalitarianism and a vigilante who takes it upon himself to burn it all down. The art by David Lloyd is one of the best things about the book, tying in with Moore's plot (which is a little clumsy) and sensibilities beautifully.

Set in an England which is the sole survivor of a nuclear war, the story's main point of view character is Evey, who in desperation tries to commit a crime to survive but unfortunately is the victim of a police setup. She is rescued by the eponymous character V, and then we see that V has been systematically killing various people in power in government.

The backstory is revealed in drips and drabs and depicts the concentration camps that hear of. Presciently, Moore has the concentration camp victims not be of people of one race, but of the deviants in society, the gays, lesbians as well as people of color. V is himself a lone escapee from that camp and goes on to terrorize the people who ran that camp.

The writing is dense --- this was Alan Moore early in his career, not having learned to use pictures to tell stories as much as text. The dialogue, while characteristic of Alan Moore's later work in places, is at times still clumsy and does more "tell" than "show." But it's astonishing how predictive Alan Moore's work has been, and it's well worth revisiting this graphic novel in these troubled times.

Review: The Impossible Man

 The Impossible Man is a biography of Roger Penrose, who won the Nobel prize for physics in 2020 for his work on black holes in his early career. The author says that the biography took 6 years to write and he had the complete cooperation of Penrose the entire time.

The book describes Penrose's work as being driven entirely by mathematics and his geometrical approach (as opposed to the equation heavy approach of many of his colleagues).  Interesting insights abound, including his fights with his parents about becoming a physicist:

“They accused me of keeping bad company because one of my friends wanted to be a nuclear physicist. They said, ‘Oh, nuclear physics is atom bombs. You’re not allowed to do that. That’s terrible.’ It was horrible.”5 Even for committed pacifists, the leap from enrolling in high school mathematics to facilitating nuclear annihilation was big. Roger wasn’t thinking that many moves ahead. He knew he’d given up one career but hadn’t thought through the alternatives. He certainly had no plans to create weapons of mass destruction. (kindle loc 1099)

The author spends a ton of time on Roger Penrose's personal life, including his difficult relationships with his various wives, children, in contrast with his easy relationship with his colleagues. In many places the author claims that Penrose used his work as an escape from his personal life, and describe him as being so self-centered that he had no idea how his behavior affected those around him, including his family.

Lots of famous people get cameos in this book, including M.C. Escher, Richard Feynman, and Lee Smolin. The saddest part of the book comes at the end, when it's clear that in many ways, Penrose's deliberate contrarian views were no longer persuasive to the greater community, and he searched for ways to validate his work, rather than allowing evidence to guide his work. Of course, that criticism has been leveled at many other than Penrose, but because Penrose had a history of being vindicated he did not swerve or change his attitude.

The subtitle of this book is "the cost of genius." I'm not sure the author fulfilled that thesis. It's not clear that Penrose could only have achieved what he did because he was obtuse about his personal relationships. It's also not clear that his increasing isolation from his family was required or inevitable. It could also have been a result of his belief that free will does not exist.

I enjoyed the book and it made for good reading. I'm not sure the author successfully made his argument but it was a good read anyway!

Review: The Bright Sword

 The Bright Sword is Lev Grossman's contribution to the Arthurian mythos. Rather than tell the story of King Arthur right out, Grossman injects a Mary Sue character who shows up at Camelot after King Arthur's death. He finds a misfit band of the leftover Knights of the Roundtable, and embarks on a quest to restore the glory of Camelot.

The writing is clear and readable, and there are many digressions to explore the backstory of various of the characters of the misfit band. I especially enjoyed the story of Sir Dunadan, whose backstory is very modern and yet ties into Lancelot's story as well.

What makes the protagonist a Mary Sue is of course that he does everything that everyone else fails to do, including defeating Sir Lancelot (no shit). There's a ton of suspension of disbelief of the various quests required (which is ok in a fantasy story), but you can see various ideas from The Magicians TV show, including flying ships, big battles, and gory fights.

As a fun read it's OK. But I don't consider it as great a contribution as The Mists of Avalon or even Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Review: A Widow for One Year

 John Irving has always been hit or miss for me. I enjoyed The Ciderhouse Rules and The World According to Garp, but bounced off A Son of the Circus. Amazon had a sale on A Widow for One Year, and at that price I thought I could take another risk.

John Irving's prose is transparent and flows very well in this novel. The words just carry you along and turns off your brain. The protagonist, Ruth Cole, was abandoned when she was 4 by her mother and the rest of the novel explains what happened, and why, and what other traumatizing events affected her. 4 of the other main characters in the book are novelists, and Irving even inserts chapters of their books into the novel, giving you the sense of a novel within a novel at times. The plot weaves along, with moments of tension and comedy, at times introducing certain characters, speeding up timelines, or even occasionally breaking the fourth wall and addressing the reader directly:

There is no intolerance in America that compares to the peculiarly American intolerance for lack of success (pg. 570)

 It is only after you've finished the book and read the author's notes that you start to notice the holes in the plot and the characters behaving irrationally (or perhaps even worse, out of character). Irving says he started the book from the final scene and then worked backwards as to how to get there. This meant that the novel at times just requires certain characters to do something even if it's not particularly in character. At other times, Irving just doesn't even bother to show you how someone is thinking but just tells you, because the narrator's voice can then override the implausibility of what the plot is about to do.

Nonetheless I don't regret the time spent reading the book, which means it was a good one.

Review: Fire Max 11

 Boen's Fire HD 10 wasn't getting much use so I traded it in for a Fire Max 11. Over the years I've come to expect low performance from the Fire tablets, but to my surprise, the Fire Max 11 was just as fast as the Pixel Tablet that we'd gotten for free last year from trading in an ancient iPad.

You do have to put up with lock screen ads, which isn't a big deal, and you do have to sideload the Google Play Store, which was a big deal, but less of a deal than you could imagine. But the tablet is snappy, loading websites, apps, and books with aplomb, and watching video on it is a pleasure. At less than 50% of the price of a Pixel Tablet, it's an amazing value. Get one. You won't regret it.

Review: Castle in the Air

 Castle in the Air is the second book in Diana Wynne Jone's series that started with Howl's Moving Castle. Rather than being told from the point of view of Howl or Sophie from that first book, the point of view character is Abdullah, and the start of the novel takes place in a middle eastern locale. The narrative is breezy and well told, with all the tropes you expect from that setting: magic carpets, genie in bottles, a romance, thievery, etc.

The problem with reading the books separated by so much time is that I didn't remember the personalities from that first book when they were finally brought back to the main narrative. The loose ends in the novel get tied up, but everything is so driven by magic and transformations that you had no way of deducing who was actually whom before the grand reveals.

What carries this book is Diana Wynne Jone's style and compelling prose. I'm not sure that's enough to make it satisfying but it probably is a good young adult read.

Review: Flashpoint

 I came across Flashpoint after I fished Three Jokers and checked it out despite my misgivings about Three Jokers. To my surprise this is a really good story, and formed the basis for The Flash movie. It's quite a bit better than that movie.

The premise is that Barry Allen wakes up in a world that he doesn't recognize. His mom is not dead, but Wonder Woman and Aquaman are in a fight with each other that's caused all of Europe to. be drowned. Superman is MIA, and the only recognizable superhero is Batman. And... he doesn't have superspeed.

I won't spoil the story for you, but rest assured that there are plenty of surprises even if you've already seen the movie. There are no points in the plot that makes you feel like it's unfair. There's a bunch of other crossover stories which I'm not sure I'll bother tracking down, but apparently this was the launch of the "New 52" which I heard is an absolute failure.

Regardless of the end result, this particular story was excellent and worth my time.

Review: Three Jokers

 For various reasons, we activated a Kindle Unlimited subscription. I was browsing and saw Three Jokers and checked it out for grins. This is a direct sequel to Alan Moore's The Killing Joke, in which Jason Todd (Robin) got killed and Barbara Gordon (Batgirl) became paralyzed from the waist down and becomes Oracle.

Somehow in this novel, Jason Todd comes back from the grave, and Barbara Gordon went through rehab and became fully functional. I'm not sure whether this is canon in the current universe or whether it's part of an alternate universe story.

Jason Todd becomes the Red Hood and runs around angry and unhappy about him being buried alive, and at one point murders one of the jokers. Of course, given the high lethality of the Joker as a criminal he would have gotten the death penalty ages ago.

There's no big mystery in this story, no displays of intelligence between the major characters, just a lot of anger and angst and much action. It adds nothing to Alan Moore's story and I'm going to do my best to forget that this sequel exists.

2025 Book Reviews

Non-Fiction

• The Impossible Man
• How Medicine Works and When it doesn't
• Engineering in Plain Sight
• Die With Zero
• Year's Best Science & Nature Writing 2024
• Revenge of the Tipping Point
• Keep Sharp
• Digital Minimalism
• Twitter and Tear Gas
• Jellyfish Age Backwards
• Outlive
• Rethinking Diabetes
• Why Your Bike is Made In Asia
• Careless People
• Abundance
• Stronger
• The Thinking Machine
• The Shape of a Life
• The NVidia Way
• The Goal
• Moral Ambition
• 7.5 Lessons about the Brain
• Our Moon
• Shift
• Everything is Tuberculosis
• Novelist as a Vocation
• Play Nice
• The Molecule of More
• Empire of Pain

Fiction

• Castle in the Air 
• A Widow for One Year
• The Bright Sword
• The Death of Chaos
• Fall of Angels
• The Chaos Balance
• Worlds
• Soldier Son Trilogy
• Normal People
• The King's Peace
• Exhalation
• The Adventures of Mary Darling
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
• Aurora Rising
• Norwegian Wood
• 1Q84
• Beguilement

Graphic Novels

• Three Jokers
• Flashpoint
• V for Vendetta
• Kingdom Come
• Justice
• Batman/Catwoman
• Zatanna
• Spent
• Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow
• Good Omens Graphic Novel
• Superman - Secret Identity
• Batman - Creature of the Night
• Camelot Falls
• Astro City Metro Book 6

Periodicals

• 10 Years of Bicycle Quarterly

Audio Books

• The Power Broker