Review: Empire of Pain

 Empire of Pain is the history of the Sackler family. This is the family responsible for the opioid epidemic in the USA, killing lots of Americans and contributing to the recent decline in life expectancy in the country. 

What I didn't realize was that the Sacklers were also responsible for Valium, which was also marketed widely. (Arthur Slacker, the patriarch of the family was one of the first people to market medicines directly to doctors, and pioneered the use of drug company representatives who visit physician offices one at a time over time in order to get the doctors to write more prescriptions for the drug)

This made the family rich, and they used that wealth to start collecting art and getting their names into museums. The family also owned a variety of other firms, one notably called IMS, that tracked where prescriptions were being filled, granting valuable information about which regions of the country are buying which drugs. They also owned a notable medical journal, which also served as placement venues for their ads budget.

This complex web of businesses was a design, and the three Sackler brothers (and their spouses) were in on it. In order to avoid the appearance of improprietary, ownership of the various companies were split, occasionally given to various close friends of the family so that Arthur Sackler wouldn't been seen as serving himself.

When the family bought Purdue Pharmaceuticals, they started with making MS Contin, a slow release morphine pill that could be swallowed. This was as opposed to injected morphine, allowing those in hospice care to go home and self medicate. Of course, morphine has a negative reputation, and doctors would think twice before prescribing it. They would then come up with Oxycontin, which is a similar slow release form of Oxycodone, which apparently is an even more powerful opiate but which doctors didn't associate with addiction because its previous formulations was in very low dose and weak forms.

The book is exhaustive in its documentation about the tenuousness of the entire FDA approval process. Apparently, the FDA official in charge was bribed with a future consulting job at Purdue Pharmaceuticals, and he allowed all sorts of wild claims that were not substantiated in the literature accompanying the drug. At the same time, the company promoted up other non-evidence-based claims that the slow release nature of the pill would mean that the drug was not addictive.

The most frustrating bit about the book, of course, is that there's no happy ending. The Sacklers get away (by hiring very good lawyers) with their wealth intact, while leaving tax payers holding the bag for all the drug rehab centers and loss of lives. The book implies but doesn't provide evidence that the judge handling the bankruptcy case was on the take from the Sacklers --- he retired after he finished handling the case.

The only bright spot in the ending is that one of the activists managed to get the Sackler name removed from many of the donated buildings and wings of various famous places (including the New York Met, Tufts' medical school), and the Sacklers are no longer held in high esteem amongst the society they like to hang out with. There's pretty slim consolation for any who lost loved ones to the opioid epidemic though.

It's a depressing book, but everyone should read it.

Review: Shokz Openswim Pro

 I started doing more swimming again, and once again, swimming isn't like cycling. The scenery doesn't change (and in America, the scenery is particularly awful), and it's pretty much boring to do just lap after lap. Since I'm not a competitive swimmer, I can't even bring myself to push hard and do intervals and try to go faster. (Swimming speed is almost 100% technique --- no amount of thrashing about will speed you up --- you just have to get the perfect stroke in consistently)

I've tried plenty of swimming headphones in the past, and they've all failed. One possibility, however, is Bone Conduction headphones. I found a pair of Shokz Openswim Pros at a sub $100 price on eBay and jumped on it.

Openswim Pros are called Pros because in addition to having onboard storage and waterproofing, they can pair to a bluetooth phone and stream audio as well. At a public swimming pool I'm not going to have my phone next to the pool to stream music, so in retrospect I didn't need the pro.

The nice thing about the headphones is that they work. The sound quality isn't great, but they work both in an out of the water. The worst thing about them is that their in-water and out-of-water sound volumes are completely different. So if you adjust it so that you can hear the music at a decent volume, when your head's in the water you feel like you're getting music blasted at you at high volume. This is of no issue if you're doing the crawl or backstroke. If you're doing the breast stroke, however, this is very annoying.

Another problem with the product is that there's no display and no method for organizing songs. The device will either shuffle all or play them all in order. You have no way of playing an audiobook split into chapters in a reasonable fashion. That's OK. Music in the pool is better anyway, because falling asleep while swimming would be embarrassing.

All in all, I enjoyed the product and use it. It's good.

Review: Arrowsmith

 After admiring Carlos Pacheco's work on Superman, I decided to look for more of his work, and came across Arrowsmith, which comes in two volumes: So Smart In Their Fine Uniforms, and Behind Enemy Lines. Since Pacheco is now dead and the second book ends in a bit of a cliffhanger, you have to be OK with the story probably never getting finished.

The world is a fantasy version of the state of the planet during World War 1, complete with trolls, dragons, and wizards and magic spells substituting for the technology. In this world, history is quite a bit different (there's an appendix in volume one where a writer friend of Kurt Busiek fills in the background behind the world).

The art is the highlight of both volumes. Pacheco's art is gorgeous, and makes you really believe the world exists. The story is a bit of a cliche --- it's the loss of innocence that happened in World War 1 but transplanted into this fantasy milieu. Sure, maybe that's some plot about the trolls being the bridge to the sunlit lands or to the seelie court, but to be honest Busiek breaks no new ground here in the story. As a vehicle for beautiful art though I cannot fault the setting or the way the story takes you through a mythic version of a Europe that might have been, seen from the point of view of an starry eyed American would-be-hero.

The story is short and obviously unfinished, so we never see how the world of Arrowsmith lives up to its potential. But it was very much worth my time checking it out from the library.

Review: TheMagic5 Swimming Googles

 I've been using Cressi tempered glass swimming goggles for years. They work, even though they're heavy, but they do leak on initial entry into water, and I usually spend the first few laps constantly adjusting the googles until they're just right. I saw an add for TheMagic5 goggles, which claim to personalize a pair of goggles for your face such that they won't leak and will fit perfectly. 

I was skeptical, of course. I've used various goggles and they've always leaked. And of course, if I were running the show, I would consider just buying standard googles and then making the same fit guarantee. The ones for whom it didn't work would just return the goggles but the ones for whom the goggle fit would be pleased and would have paid an insane amount for non custom goggles. I tried them anyway.

The goggles take far longer than the website promises to deliver. From ordering to delivery (the scanning process demanded a smartphone app with the camera and it took a couple of tries but in total took about 15 minutes) it was more than 3 weeks. When they showed up, they were unusual, being split where the nose piece is (the nose piece is actually a slot on one side and a hook on the other so you would put the two sides together. The instructions say to just let the goggles find their place on your face and not to over-tighten. The goggles come with anti-fog coating and you're told not to touch the inside of the goggles.

To my surprise, the goggles just fit and did not leak! The weird curvature of the goggles made me think that there was a layer of water at first, but when I flipped over and did a backstroke there was no stinging in the eyes from chlorine. No amount of diving, flipping, or playful thrashing about in the water dislodged the goggles. And the goggles never fogged up either!

I'm forced to recommend these and rescind my cynicism. They work. I use them and think they're great.

Review: AstroCity Metro Book Vol 6

 I never got around to buying/reading the last few AstroCity collections, and it turned out that they're now all available on Hoopa as part of the Metro Book collections, so I checked out the final volume. The framing story is that of a mysterious blue-skinned character known as the Broken Man. It turns out that he's the last of a series of historical supernatural characters that embody music. This gives Busiek a chance to explore the history of Astro City and its previous incarnations.

Unlike the first few AstroCity volumes, which focus on the mundane characters living in AstroCity, this one is truly focused on the superheroes. What I like about the heroes is that these are all really quirky characters. One is literally the figment of his daughter's imagination (unfortunately, I got exposed to the same idea in Kurt Busiek's Creature of the Night). Another is an amulet that confers the power of a bonded animal with the human it's attuned to. This one was fun, because the amulet got bonded with a Corgi puppy. The result was hilarious (imagine a superhero being told how adorable and cute he is after saving the day).

One great mundane story was a follow up to a story told in the first volume of Astro City where a man lost his wife as a result of a time changing battle between heroes and a volume, and as a result his wife never existed. In that story, he was given the choice to forget her and absorb himself into his new timeline or to remember both time lines. In this story, we see the followup consequences of that. It was a great story.

I enjoyed the book. It kinda ends tentatively --- we never see what happens to the Broken Man. I get the impression Busiek abandoned Astro City because his other contracts were more lucrative. It's a unique universe, however, so I hope he comes back to it.

Review: Superman - Camelot Falls

 While browsing Hoopla I saw that Busiek wrote another Superman story called Camelot Falls, so I checked it out as well.

The thesis behind Camelot Falls is that human civilizations move in cycles, with a rise and then a fall. The fall can be resisted, and Superman and the Justice League form one of the forces resisting the fall. An ancient Atlantean sorcerer called Arion insists, however, that the longer the fall is put off the worst it will be, and if Superman insists on going on his current path it would result in the extinction of humanity.

Superman, of course, posits that he has free will, and that he cannot simply not help out and feel good about himself (was there any doubt about this?). He has a fight with Arion and defeats him, but the overall arc of the story ends there --- apparently Busiek stopped working on Superman and nobody ever picked up the unfinished grand plot he left behind, leaving the story very unsatisfying.

There are a few interesting pieces of the story, including one where it is revealed that everyone from the United States government and the Justice League has a plan for stopping Superman on the day he goes rogue from mind control, magic, or just decides to turn against humanity. The intention there is to make you feel how alienated Superman can feel.

In this Superman universe, he's married to Lois Lane and they even have a child. Lana Lang is running LexCorp (another weird one). The art is fantastic (especially the interpretations of Lois Lane and Lana Lang), making me sad that Carlos Pacheco died in 2022.

I can't really recommend this story. It's just not that satisfying and an unfinished storyline. Probably the only reason to read it is to look at Pacheco's art.

Reiew: The Molecule of More

 The Molecule of More is a book length exposition of Dopamine. There's plenty of exposition about Dopamine's role in well known human syndromes such as addiction, but this book managed to explain it in a clear and interesting fashion without boring me, which I thought made it an excellent book to read as a review of what I'd already learned in previous books.

The long and short of the book is that Dopamine is the molecule exuded by your brain when there's a positive prediction error. In other words when something is a lot more pleasant or pleasurable than you expected. This leads you to do more of whatever the action you took until that positive prediction error goes away, which of course is pretty fast in the case of typical substances like food or drink.

When it comes to addictive substances like drugs (alcohol, cocaine, or sometimes even video games), however, this prediction error can turn you into an addict. In those circumstances, what medical practice can do is to try to heighten the pleasure you get from the H&N ("here and now") molecules which your body uses to direct pleasure at what you currently have as opposed to anticipatory pleasure that dopamine provides. Disappointingly enough, the book doesn't go into very much detail about how H&N molecules work.

The book then expands on this principle to describe how certain people who have heightened dopamine receptors can never be unhappy no matter how much they have. This explains why certain driven people keep focusing on achievements no matter what they've achieved, and why Mick Jagger never settled down with a single woman and just kept looking for more.

Some of the book is clearly speculative, for instance, the section speculating on how immigrants tend to have more dopamine receptors. Many of the book's points are told in the form of stories about an individual that feel compelling.

I enjoyed this book and can recommend it.

Review: Batman - Creature of the Night

 After reading Superman - Secret Identity, I discovered that Kurt Busiek wrote the Batman equivalent called Creature of the Night which showed up in 2020. So of course I checked it out of the library via Hoopla and read it.

Just like the other graphic novel, this one is set in a world where DC Comics exist, and everyone knows that Bruce Wayne is Batman. In fact, growing up, Bruce Wainwright loved Batman and made sure everyone knew about it, even calling a family friend Alfred.

When Wainwright's parents are killed, he gets distraught and somehow a Batman appears to help him out. Over the rest of the graphic novel, we get exposition about the nature of this Batman (which is nothing like the conventional Batman comics) and then we deal with how the real world differs from the easy answers of the Batman comics.

The story falls strictly into the fantasy category. There is no explanation for the Batman that makes sense (unlike even in the official DC comics), though there's some bizarre explanation in the narrative that's unsatisfying to me. There's no deep exploration of Bruce's psyche, and there's no long journey where Bruce gets any ephiphanies. That makes this book a weaker work than Secret Identity, but it was worth reading for a unique take on Batman.

Review: Superman - Secret Identity

 Somehow I'd missed that Kurt Busiek wrote a Superman story called Secret identity. Well, of course I had to go and check it out from Hoopla. The story is set on Earth Prime (or rather, our Earth, where no superheroes exist). On Earth Prime, DC Comics continue to publish superhero comics, so everyone knows that Clark Kent is Superman. Except, in this universe Clark Kent was just the cruel joke played on him by his parents, who figured why not subject their kids to the worst bullying possible by naming him Clark when they live in Picketsville, Kansas.

Much like the story in Invincible, Clark Kent has a normal childhood and grows up having broken bones just like any other kid. But in high school, his powers manifest one day, and he discovers that he's Superman! Unlike other Superman stories there are no Lex Luthors or other Super-Villains. (There is a Lois, but not Lois Lane) He works as a writer, but not as a reporter for a newspaper. (It's The New Yorker)

The challenges this version of Superman gets are of course, the government trying to capture him and subject him to experiments and so forth. (Why governments are never sensible can probably be a PhD thesis on Earth Prime) Strangely enough, this Superman can get his blood drawn and so on. We see him fall in love, get married, have kids, and even retire.

As Superman stories go, this is a pretty down to earth, easy to read, and short story. We never get to see where his powers come from, or whether he truly was adopted. There are lots of loose ends. But beyond that it's a pretty reasonable story but not quite up to par with Busiek's AstroCity work.

Review: Good Omens Graphic Novel

 I will confess that I've always bounced off Terry Prachett's work. Disc World, you name it, I can't read more than a few pages before I'm tired of it. Good Omens (the novel) was no exception. But a year or so ago Bowen and Boen got into watching the TV show, and I found that I enjoyed it. I guess I liked the plot, it was always Terry Prachett's writing that left me cold.

Colleen Doran announced that she was doing a graphic novel adaptation of Good Omens. It was a kickstarter project, and I backed it before the allegations about Neil Gaiman was announced. In any case, it wouldn't have felt fair to knock Colleen Doran for associating with Gaiman. The graphic novel took a year or so to deliver, and I'd even forgotten about it by the time it showed up in the mail.

It's a testament to how far Gaiman's star has fallen that his name wasn't even on the title page to the book, though it showed up in the interior splash page. The art is great, as you can expect from Doran, but you can tell that the comic was adapted from a (very wordy) novel. There are several places where a traditional comic book author would tell the story in pictures rather than huge blocks of text that were probably lifted from the novel proper.

Where the comic differs from the TV show, it was clear that the show was the one that deviated from the novel. The novel does the usual Gaiman schtick of setting up for a great battle and then having it be defused with an anticlimax (the TV show doesn't shy away from that schtick). The graphic novel adds enough color (literally) and distraction that the Terry Prachett prose didn't bother me at all.

What can I say? A comic book that lets me read a novel that I've bounced off. That makes it recommended.

Review: Hileen replacement nosepads for Oakley cycling glasses

 One of the most annoying things about cycling with glasses is when they keep sliding down your nose. I've tried stuff like nerdwax which works for ordinary glasses, but those absolutely do not work with cycling glasses like my preferred Oakleys.

I did notice that Amazon sold replacement nosepads by various Chinese manufacturers, and the Hileen one advertises that they make special Asian-fit nosepads. I bought them and installed them and used them all throughout the tour this year. They alleviate the problem, but don't make it completely go away. It turns out that the most likely cause of glasses slipping is your helmet being a bit loose and rattling down on your glasses and causing them to slide down.

After I got back, I decided that this wasn't helping, and then switched to the original pads that came with my glasses. Wow, the originals were so much worse that I immediately switched back after one ride. So these are effective. Recommended.

Review: Wolftooth Encase Hex Wrench Kit

 If you have a minimalist toolbag on your bike, you probably at some point run out of space. One alternative is to stow your tools into your handlebar, but then it would rattle. The Wolftooth Encase system solves that problem by wrapping the tool in a rubber sleeve that slips into your handlebar end so it doesn't rattle.

The wolftooth system comes with a spoke wrench, 2, 2.5, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8mm allen wrenches, a collection of torx wrenches, a spoke wrench, and both flathead and philips heads screwdrivers. The handle features a swivel head so you can place the tool in the right place. Cleverly, the swivel happens in only one plane so you can still rotate the tools when screwing or unscrewing something.

The penalty is that all wolftooth systems stuff is extremely expensive. I bought it only as part of a scratch and dent sale and it was still expensive. There's also a corresponding encase sleeve with a chaintool, but since one of my two handlebar end spots is taken up by a bar end shifter, I only bought the wrench set.

I was skeptical of how easy it was to get the entire toolkit flush with the handlebars, and indeed it doesn't sit flush, but that's a good thing --- when you need to extract the toolkit, you still need a bit of extra grip so you can pull the tool out.

Identifying the correct sized wrench is a bit of a headache --- the labels aren't quite easy to read, especially in the dark, but after a bit of fumbling you can get it out. With magnetic attachment systems each bit fits right into place with a satisfying snap. However, the magnetic attachment system is not very strong. I left a bit in a hex socket once after tightening when I removed the body but the bit remained in place. No problem, as soon as I reached to put the bit back into place I discovered the problem.

Everything is held together with rubber bands that you have to slip off when you need to extract a bit for use. It's a bit of a hassle, but I have yet to lose a bit.

Compared to the regular multi-tools, it's light and saves a lot of space. But it's also too expensive for me to deploy on all my bikes, so it only gets used on my light day-riding/commute bike. I can recommend it if you have only one bike, but I suspect a bigger saddlebag is a better (and cheaper) option for most.

Review: Beguilement

 Amazon showed me that Beguilement was for sale for $2. The library didn't have it in electronic format and I found myself thinking: "Wait, a Lois Bujold series I haven't read?" And I bought it and read it in 3 days or so.

This story is a romance (a lot of Bujold's stories are romances), about the meeting of Dag and Fawn. The world they're in has a lake and Dag belongs to the Lakewalkers, a semi-militarized group of patrols whose job is to seek out "malices" (essentially evil spirits) that occasionally wake up and take over mammals or humans and start attempting to take over the world.

The story starts with Dag rescuing Fawn from one of the local malice's minions, and through a series of mishaps and misadventures Fawn ends up killing the malice. They fall in love and the rest of the story in-clues you into the milieu through their integrating their disparate lives together, and demonstrating what the major superpower the patrollers have (called "groundsense") are.

The characters are great (Lois Bujold's characters always are). They're not as well formed as Miles Vorkosigan was, but they're relatable and Bujold's writing always makes you care about them. This being the first of a 4-part series, the world isn't as fully fleshed out but you get some hints of what should be upcoming reveals --- Bujold always plays fair in that anything that she reveals probably got some useful hints earlier on in the narrative. That's what made her such a good SF writer, and that rigor carries over nicely to her fantasy fiction.

Even mediocre Bujold is good reading. Contrasting her writing with Murakami makes me feel that the world is unfair. In a more just world, Bujold would get just as much attention from mainstream outlets as Murakami's novels get.

Long term review: Waxing Chains

 I've been waxing chains on my family's fleet of bicycles for about 18 months. When I first started doing this, I considered it a hassle (and to some extent it's still a hassle). First, I had to clean the drivetrain fairly thoroughly (I didn't do a perfect job). I also made the transition during a winter where it actually rained quite a bit and found myself having to rewax the chain after each rain.

Over time, I transitioned first the tandem and when I built up Xiaoqin's Ritchey Road Logic and Bowen's Roadini I started them both on waxed chain. The tandem wore out a SRAM 1101 chain after only 1000 miles despite my waxing it, making me question whether the wax was helping a lot. But my custom single bike had gone over 6000 miles without the chain wearing out, which made me think that the tandem experience was due to my using a $10 chain instead of a $30 chain. I switched that bike over to a Shimano CUES chain just before last year's tour and sure enough, despite the tandem load and two tours, the chain is still going strong.

Xiaoqin had the same SRAM 1101 chain fall apart in the wax port, something that I couldn't attribute to any wear. I decided she rode enough to have two chains waxed at the same time, and would just swap chains whenever one needed to be waxed. This makes the process much easier and you're never at risk of having a bike out of service because the chain is being waxed.

We also tried the Silca Endurance Chip. I was skeptical that it would have any benefit, but this winter, Bowen went through fairly rainy commutes, and his bike was always outside exposed to the rain when he was at school. Despite that, the chain was still good, and he toured on the same chain (with a wax job both before and after the tour).

During the tour we exposed the bikes to rain on a somewhat frequent basis, and the bikes also rode through substantial gravel. In all cases, we only added liquid wax lubricant after a rainy ride. When the tour was over I measured all the chains and none of them had worn!

We now have only 4 bikes in the fleet that have not converted to wax lubrication. My Roadini, Boen's Salsa, my MTB, and Xiaoqin's MTB. All of them will get converted when their existing chains wear out. The implication of waxing means that chains are no longer consumables, and it's justifiable to buy chains that match the color of the frames for instance. It also means that I'm willing to run more expensive cassettes going forward as those will also not be consumables.

To my surprise, I'm now a chain waxing advocate. It's a hassle, but it does seem to provide benefits commensurate with the hassle involved.

Review: Gabaruk 11-50 11s cassette

Gabaruk's 11-50 11s cassette can be gotten for $211. For a weight savings of approximately 300g, it handily beats the $1/gram of weight savings metric that most cyclists use when considering equipment. I bought two, one for Xiaoqin's Ritchey Road Logic (getting that bike under 8kg with pedals!) and one for Bowen's Roadini after watching her experience with it.

The obvious benefit is that the cassette is lighter. It achieves the light weight by replacing the giant 50t steel sprocket with one made out of aluminum. In theory this means that sprocket will wear out faster. However, since we wax our chains, cassette wear is now minimal on all our bikes.

The big loss is in shifting performance. The Gabaruk simply does not shift as smoothly or as well as the Shimano m5100 or the CUES linkglide cassette. Just like older drivetrains, you have to ease up when shifting, and if you flub a shift, the cassette has a disturbing tendency to drop the chain and cause the drivetrain to shift all the way to the smallest sprocket, which usually is the complete opposite of what you intended to do. As a result, I do not recommend this cassette to tandems, heavy people, or the kind of people who want to (or need to) shift under load without easing up on the pedals.

Both Xiaoqin and Bowen complain about the shifting performance. On the other hand, when asked if they'd like the old cassette back the answer has usually been a "no." 300g is half a pound, which is a lot when you weigh in under 100 pounds like Bowen, and both the Ritchey and the Roadini are at a point where I cannot easily shave more weight from either bike. I'll continue to accept the weight penalty on my single and on the tandem, given that I weigh more and the savings is not as important, and I do ride in situations where a bad shift could be very undesirable.

If you are light or have a light touch on the pedals and can ease off when shifting, the Gabaruk is a very nice weight savings for a relatively low price.

Review: Play Nice

 Play Nice is Jason Schreier's corporate history of Blizzard Entertainment. Written in a breathless manner that befits its subject, the book is fast paced and covers Blizzard from its origins as a 2 person startup to a corporation that was sold first to Davidson & Associates, then to Vivendi, then to Activision, and finally the sale to Microsoft.

For those of us who got their careers in Silicon Valley, this book is a reminder that the entertainment industry, particularly video game companies outside Silicon Valley, doesn't believe in sharing the wealth. Other than the two founders, the initial employees at Blizzard never got stock options or any other form of equity, so when Blizzard was first sold, only its founders got wealthy. This story repeated itself until the sale to Activision, whereupon some staff (not all) got some sort of profit sharing bonuses, but even that was computed in an opaque fashion. It's no wonder that game industry veterans are frequently so bitter.

The book does mention people I actually met (e.g., Pat Wyatt, one of the early engineers at Blizzard). Wyatt was actually as good a programmer as his reputation, though Warcraft (and later Diablo) had its share of bad code. Nevertheless, I remember Wyatt walking me through Warcraft's two player code over the phone and talking me through inserting an IP layer into it --- it was a very productive session.

The book does cover the various sexual harassment scandals that ultimately caused the Blizzard sale. It places it in context, noting that many various events could also be attributed to Blizzard's fast and loose culture and very young staff. It also covered the go-go years at Blizzard, when it could seemingly do no wrong, from Warcraft II to Starcraft to World of Warcraft, it seemed as though Blizzard's every product was a big success.

To the extent that the book has villains, its mostly corporate managers who had no passion for video games and themselves could never sit down and play video games or take it seriously as a hobby. The book attributes Blizzard's success to its own employees being enthusiastic games who would provide feedback and polish the product rather than release it early to make a fast buck. Taking down Diablo III's auction house, for instance, was also an unusual move for a company to actively delete a way of monetizing the product in favor of making the game actually better for players.

Of course, such dedication to product quality is very hard in a world where "enshittification" is the rule. Whether Blizzard continues to make good games after its acquisition by Microsoft is very much in doubt. I enjoyed the book and found it entertaining. Well worth your time.

Review: Flow Control Filter for Aeropress

 The aeropress is still my favorite coffee maker. Rather than use the "inverted" method, I always use the filter upright, but immediately pop the syringe onto the top after filling the barrel with coffee. By doing so, you still get some leaks coming off the bottom of the aeropress, but it's limited to just a minute or so. Then after an appropriate brewing time I push the syring all the way to the bottom.

The problem with this is if you are pressing into a small capacity cup, you may over-estimate the amount of water needed and then you end up overflowing the cup. Aeropress recently introduced the Flow Control Filter, which solves that problem. There is absolutely no drip whatseover when you pour water into the barrel. However, when you press down on the syringe it immediately opens up the valve and you get standard flow.

I didn't expect this to change the flavor of my brew but it does. It's a much stronger brew now, and I have to adjust how much time I leave the coffee brewing as a result. This results in much shorter brew time. The filter is expensive but it's multi-use and  looks so sturdy it ought to outlast the standard brewer basket.

Recommended.

Review: 1Q84

 I previously bounced off 1Q84, but after reading about Harukami talking about it about his first attempt at a really long novel (over 1000 pages!) I decided to give it a chance and this time it stuck. I've complained about Norweigian Wood not feeling very Japanese because of all its literary and musical references. However, 1Q84 struck me as being very Japanese despite having similar literary and musical references to Western music and media.

1Q84 strikes me as being in the same sensibility as Weathering With You or Your Name. Both Japanese movies have male and female protagonists who are separated in time or space, and who live in an alternate world/timeline where fantastical events/circumstances can happen. As with those movies, there's no explanation, no rationality for why these fantastical elements exist, but it does, and the connection between the protagonists are very light, almost to the point of randomness.

Aomame is a female assassin (one who is dispatched to silently kill men who abuse women). Tengo is a cram school math teacher who's trying to write a novel on the side. The link between them was that they went to elementary school together, and Tengo showed Aomame kindness at one point in 5th grade.

The plot starts when Aomame discovers that the world she's living in is subtly shifted from what she's grown up with --- the police are carrying different weapons, there's discussion about a moon base, and intriguingly, there are two moons in the sky, but she appears to be the only one who sees the second moon.

The chapters in the novel alternate between Aomame and Tengo, though in the last 3rd of the book a 3rd viewpoint is introduced. We gradually see the two threads come together. The pace of the book is slow, and especially in the last 3rd, you wonder if Harukami is deliberately prolonging the book as though he's getting paid by the word. Most of the supernatural stuff is unexplained --- you're just asked to accept it. The characters' resolutions are satisfying, though the 3rd viewpoint near the end of the book seems superfluous.

I read the book to the end, and to be fair the resolution of the alternate world hypothesis was strongly hinted at all through the novel, and you come to the end of the novel and are not surprised by the ending and thinking that it was an unfair mystery. The book definitely could have been much tighter edited and a lot of the extraneous stuff felt more or less superfluous, or "inefficient" as Harukami would describe in his essays.

Still, any 1000 page novel that can get me to finish it in a couple of weeks is probably of above average quality.

Review: Ortlieb Saddlebag 4 liter

 I'd been using the old style Ortlieb mini handlebar bag. While it's satisfactory for most of my purposes, it had several drawbacks, chiefest of which was that by using the front of the handlebar, you have to find alternative locations for your front light. When you add up the bag, the bag mount, and the additional accoutements to mount the front light, it's actually substantial weight. On the tandem it doesn't matter, but on my single bike I really would prefer as light a setup as possible, while still making it possible to mount a radar tail light.

The only model I could find that fit all those requirements was the Ortlieb Saddlebag 4L. I ordered one and discovered to my dismay that the mount didn't fit the Ritchey WCS saddle! Fortunately, Pamela Bayley had sold/given me a smaller Ortlieb seatbag and that one came with a mount that worked. (I would later replace the screws that came with the newer bag with ones that work) Since all Ortlieb saddlebag mounts are cross compatible it was no issue to use them. My complaint about this design is that it's unnecessary --- I would much rather have had velcro wings which would have been less finicky.

The saddlebag slides onto the mount, and ties to the seatpost using a velcro strap. I was worried that I would feel the saddlebag with my thighs while riding, but to my surprise this turned out to be a non-issue. The drybag style flap clips off to the side and by tightening the straps it becomes narrow enough that thighs clear the saddlebag with no problems. One disturbing thing about the bag is that invariably there's sufficient air in the saddlebag to make it bulge a little, so sometimes it takes a couple of tries to get the air out. A valve would have been useful though that would have increased the weight. As a result of this air, sometimes that bag will rattle especially if it's not completely full.

When I go on a really lightweight ride, I replace this saddlebag with a mini bag that uses the same mount and has much less volume. It's little enough effort to switch that I do it as a matter of course. But for bay area riding the 4L bag is what you want: you can put in a windshell, arm and leg warmers, and snacks and tools for an extended ride while still having room for your radar. If you pack really light it might even suffice for an overnighter, though that's not in the cards for me as I would need to pack a CPAP machine and this bag just doesn't have sufficient volume for that.

For commuting, this bag will NOT fit any laptops. But bikepacking style saddlebags won't fit any laptop anyway. For carrying a laptop you still want the traverse style saddlebag.

The bag is a little expensive but it did everything I wanted it to do. Recommended.

Review: Novelist as a Vocation

 I enjoyed Norwegian Wood enough to check out what Haruki Murakami thought about his career as a novelist. Novelist as a Vocation is an original, unique work on the topic. Murakami is humble enough not to prescribe his working style to anyone else, and his unique life means that he has a lot to offer in his thoughts.

The early essays focus on his start as a novelist, and how one day he decided to write a novel, hand-wrote a manuscript over a few months, and then decided it was trash. He then gave up pen and paper and got out a typewriter and rewrote the story in English, not his native language. He claimed that this experience forced him to use simplified language and short words, and after he was done he translated the chapter(s) into Japanese and finished the novel that way, winning a literary price. What a unique experience and insight! By the way, this probably explains why Norwegian Wood didn't feel very much like a Japanese novel. The guy is completely steeped in Western literature, music, and even culture!

His thinking about writing a novel is that a novel is a uniquely inefficient way to get a message across:

Someone whose message is clearly formed has no need to go through the many steps it would take to transpose that message into a story. All he has to do is put it directly into words—it’s much faster and can be easily communicated to an audience. A message or concept that might take six months to turn into a novel can thus be fully developed in a mere three days. Or in ten minutes, if the writer has a microphone and can spit it out as it comes to him. Quick thinkers are capable of that kind of thing. The listener will slap his knee and marvel, “Why didn’t I think of that?!” In the final analysis, that’s what being smart is really all about. (kindle loc 225)

I love that rather than the moaning and groaning about how hard writing is, he talks about how writing was never hard for him. He basically works on the side as a translator of English books, and only writes when the urge consumes him:

 I never write unless I really want to, unless the desire to write is overwhelming. When I feel that desire, I sit down and set to work. When I don’t feel it, I usually turn to translating from English. Since translation is essentially a technical operation, I can pursue it on a daily basis, quite separate from my creative desire; yet at the same time it is a good way to hone my writing skills—were I not a translator, I’m sure I would have found another related pursuit. If I am in the mood, I may also turn to writing essays. “What the heck,” I defiantly tell myself as I peck away at those other projects. “Not writing novels isn’t going to kill me.” (kindle 956)

There are some interesting things that betray Murakami's protestations about his character. Early on in the book he has an entire chapter devoted to how he was glad he didn't win this prestigious prize for upcoming new writers. Later, he writes about how the Japanese criticism of his work led him to leave Japan to write Norwegian Wood so that he didn't have to listen to the critics while he was writing. Clearly the guy is much more sensitive to criticism than he lets on.

I love that his writing habits is to do a certain number of pages a day, and then stop. No more and no less. He also has a devotion to physical fitness, having run an hour a day for almost his entire working life. This of course disturbs the common image of a writer:

I have the sense that no one is hoping that a writer lives in a quiet suburb, lives a healthy early-to-bed-early-to-rise lifestyle, goes jogging without fail every day, likes to make healthful vegetable salads, and holes up in his study for a set period every day to work. I have the anxious sense that all I’m doing is throwing a damper on people’s sense of the romantic. (kindle loc 1624)

Finally there's a great implicit criticism of Japanese academic approach to schools and teaching. Murakmi always refers to himself as being a mediocre student who effectively dropped out of school (he did finish his degree but over a period of years) to start a Jazz cafe. His criticism of Japanese schools will give you much to think about if you were to apply it to the Bay Area parenting hothouse culture:

There were lots of kids who had better grades on English tests than me, but as far as I could tell, none of them could read a book in English from cover to cover. Yet I could easily plow through an entire book. Then why were my grades in English class so mediocre? The conclusion I came to was that the goal of English classes in Japanese high schools was not to get students to use actual, living English. Then what was the goal? There was only one: for students to get high marks on the English section of the college entrance exams. At least for the teachers in the public high school I attended, being able to read books in English or have ordinary conversations with foreigners was beside the point... This goes beyond English, or the study of foreign languages. I can’t help thinking that in almost every subject, Japan’s educational system fundamentally fails to consider how to motivate each individual to improve their potential. Even now the system seems intent on going by the book to cram in facts and teach test-taking techniques. And teachers and parents live and die by how many of their students and children get into various universities. It’s all kind of sad. When I was in school my parents and teachers always warned me, “You’ve got to study as hard as you can while you’re in school. Otherwise when you grow up you’ll regret not having studied more when you were young.” But after I left school I never thought that, not even once. For me it was more regret that I hadn’t done more things I enjoyed doing. Being forced to do that kind of rote memorization, I felt, wasted my life. (kindle loc 1774-1798)

All in all, the book is short, but full of stuff worth reading. I certainly found it more enlightening or maybe even enjoyable than his fiction!