speaking of festivals

Woodstock happens, then turns into a rather pathetic legend for decaying boomers.
Glastonbury happens, everyone decides it's pretty fun, and they're still at it, every year for the past 40.
There's a bit more wisdom in the latter.

Another Festival in Victoria Park

There's another music festival this weekend in Victoria Park. I love these. Nice crowds, lively music. The festival walls weren't photogenic, but I took some random photos in a big walk around the music grounds.

some wildflowers in Well Street Common

new olympic stadium looming over Tower Hamlets... looks wonderfully alien

Trending Aesthetics

I've noticed that the iPad versions of apps for which there are also desktop versions tend to have much nicer interfaces (e.g. Evernote, SplashID, OmniFocus, BBCNews). Has Apple made it ok for both hardware and software to actually look good? Has the aesthetics of the device and the free availability of competition in the marketplace raised the bar? Maybe it's just the iPad versions are newer, but I think there's more to it.

Evernote

Started using Evernote a few weeks ago. Its utility increases exponentially with use, so I've made a good-faith effort to seed it with info. Once it gets to critical mass I can see it will be phenomenally useful. Even a couple weeks in, it's already proving to be handy. Example use case: anything that might be tax-relevant info I now just send to evernote with a #tax tag. Or anything I find related to, say, cycling, that I'm interested in, I have Evernote remember, whether it be a website, a product I'm interested in, route info, PDFs of install & maintenance guides for components I have, etc. This could partially be covered by saving bookmarks, and keeping them in sync. Not entirely though. And I've got clients on my desktop, iPad, and iPhone. (The iPad client is the best for browsing, actually, much nicer than the desktop client. Desktop client is the best for adding new content. Also there are plug-ins for firefox and safari on the desktop to add pages to evernote with a single-click, but the iPad safari has no plug-in capability yet, which is a shame.) Will re-evaluate in a year, but so far it looks like it will be good.

Some Movie Viewing Recommendations

Inception: recommended for viewing in a theatre

Let The Right One In: recommended for viewing subtitled version, especially before the american remake comes out (virtually assured to be inferior in all aspects)

Burrata!

Occasionally the chalk sign for the neighborhood deli will announce "Burrata back in stock!" I never paid much attention. I didn't even know what burrata was. Finally I decided to see what all the fuss was about. Turns out it's a southern italian cheese thing, in which they make a pouch out of mozzarella and stuff it with a mixture of shredded fresh mozzarella + cream.

Yes.

HDTV

Finally got HDTV a few weeks ago. Wasn't sure I'd notice a difference.


I notice a difference.

Some things look fantastic. Sports tend to look ludicriously good. Nature shows, Top Gear, and GT5: excellent. Movies are a mixed bag. Some look wonderful, but sometimes the HD makes them look like they were shot on video. Edges too sharp and flat backgrounds or something. There are lots of settings for the TV, though, I think there are plenty of tweaks to optimize for film. Overall, definitely enjoying it.

My MiFi vs. My Use Cases

So I've been using a MiFi thingy (take a 3G phone, remove the voice functionality, and turn it into a wifi router) and it generally works fine but I am still baffled by it's modes of operation. It has 3 buttons. One to toggle power, one to toggle the wifi routerness, one to toggle the 3G connection to the internet. So it can be in these modes:

1. off
2. power on, but not connected to the 3G network and wifi OFF
3. power on, connected to the 3G network, but wifi OFF
4. power on, wifi ON, but NOT connected to the 3G network
5. power on, connected to the 3G network and wifi ON

When you power it up, it goes to state #2! Sometimes it then automatically goes to either #3 or #4. It seems nondeterministic. Additional button pushing gets it to state #5. Sometimes the wifi bit turns itself off, for no apparent reason. But what I'm really wondering is what are the use cases for states 2-4?? I only ever want it to be in state 1 or 5. I can't for the life of me figure how any of the other states could be used.

London's New Cycle Route 3: when does the "super" start?

The first two of  London's unfortunately named "Cycle Superhighways" opened officially the other week. This morning I rode Route 3 from the docklands east to the end in Barking. It goes all the way west to Tower Gateway, but I've already ridden down Cable street to Tower Hill a couple times prior to it being any kind of highway. So the new route 3 ride was... well, kind of crap. I do like the blue paint, and they've supposedly done their homework on the surface and durability of it. Much of the route is just an older bike path tarted up a bit. And that bike path was essentially just pavement segregated into pedestrian and bike halves, with a dangerous little concrete berm in between them. Some of it is on streets, in which case there's no blue bike path but there are large and helpful blue squares with the route designation on them at regular intervals. The bike paths mostly suck. Most sections are way too narrow. Even a modest traffic volume would be a nightmare. No passing, and somewhat nerve-racking in some bits having to ride a narrow chute with on-coming traffic just off the curve to your left, oncoming cyclists brushing your shoulder on the right. There was one section where the pathway widened out to reasonable proportions, with a pleasant grass strip in between the path and the A13, but for most of the length it was uncomfortably narrow. Also in the path: lampposts, road signs, and the occasional car. Fun. For the most part, the route marking was fine, but there were a couple sections where the blue disappears and there's no clear signage where you're supposed to go, including a couple non-obvious navigations of large roundabouts and a particularly bad one through the edge of the docklands. And the end in Barking is not clearly marked at all. Flow-wise, there are a high number of intersections on the route that use pedestrian crossings. On the balance, it wasn't that pleasant an experience. In Barking, I headed north and then west back into hackney. I was honestly relieved once I was on actual roadways, jostling with the buses and vans.

To be fair, yes, it is an improvement. Some sections I might appreciate if I were commuting on that corridor. No, I wouldn't want to take the kids on it (even though they are competent cyclists), nor would I recommend it for anyone nervous or inexperienced. In other words, if you're not already ok riding in London, this probably isn't for you. If you are, some bits of it might make your life slightly easier, but don't expect it to be entirely pleasant or to make a big change in your commuting time.

Calling them "superhighways" was about the worst thing they could have done. It's like making modest improvements to a driving route that was in bad shape (e.g. unpaved sections with no signs) such that you ended up with a single-lane (in each direction) paved roadway, with plenty of stop signs and traffic lights, and then telling everyone you've built an autobahn. Instead of a few people being happy with your improvements, you get everyone thinking you're an idiot. Especially because there are good examples of autobahns that just about everyone is familiar with. Likewise, there are good examples elsewhere in europe of fast, wide, segregated cycle routes. We're still waiting for ours.

Bike Mechanic

What I lack in skill and knowledge I make up for with stupidity and perserverance. I rehabbed my bikes recently. On the legendary Trek 7600, I finally retired the softride suspension stem. They haven't made them for years, but I was quite fond of mine. Being an old bike, I had to get a quill-threadless stem converter. Then put a new stem on. And ended my ill-advised cork-tape-on-straight-handlebars experiment with some new grips. Also put some schwalbe ultra marathon++ tires of uninstallibility on (eventually), after getting tired of flatting out on broken glass on the towpaths. They seem like they will outlast the heat death of the universe, which is good because they were nearly impossible to put on. I may just buy new wheels if I want to put cross tires on for some rides.

I also dusted off the road bike frame, not used in anger in the past 6 years. I had put a mtb crankset on the front in Switzerland, to gear it down to accomodate my feebleness in the mountains (climbing is all about power/weight ratio, and gosh is my ratio low). I decided to reinstall the original campagnolo cranks, chainrings, and bottom bracket, but could not get the old cranks off. I'd gone with an isis bottom bracket with the mtb cranks. Unlike the campy bottom bracket, onto which you which you tighten the cranks to a specific torque setting, the isis interface has a positive stop, so torque is a guide but you keep tightening until you hit the stop, regardless. Isis was a clever design, actually. But I managed to essentially friction-weld the whole thing into a solid metal unit. So I took the boys out and we bought an angle grinder. Oh yes. The angle grinder. (I've found that now I'm constantly trying to come up with excuses to use it.) So we had a lot of fun with it. Nothing (much) caught on fire in the kitchen. And the cranks came off.

campy parts, ready for install, once we're done with the angle grinder

pre angle-grinder: this filed-down coin didn't help, but at least I didn't break my crank-pullers

the road bike, reassembled

suspension stem, RIP

the front end is a lot lighter and more responsive now

the bike room

Beef Shin Confit

Finally cracked open the beef shin confit I'd made. Seven+ months in the fridge. Still good. Fried it up a bit like shawerma -- wonderful combination of tender & crispy. Really good. Definitely something to try again.