… are indeed BS, so I’ve mixed feelings about getting one.
Trivial news
Uncle Seiko makes decent straps.
My friend has a epic cool home hacking setup.
I got a Motiv fitbit ring… works well so far.
Here’s a beach volleyball game, middling effort:
Life goes on!
Lastly a two part scale for bad watches, from the WPAC 2019 thread.
A story in two posts
I adore a great rant and this one is right up there. Here’s the setup: WPAC, the Watch Purchasing Abstinence Club, is a group of watch addicts trying to help each other wasting money. One of the recurring conversations is that a member posts a prospective watch and the others ritually insult it. This is my favorite so far.
For context, a cyclops is a piece of watch crystal shaped to magnify the date. Rolex pioneered and still uses them, but many dislike a cyclops due to the distorting effects and occlusion of the dial.
Sometimes the bashing is good, and sometimes it’s this good.
Had to share. Thread is here… enjoy.
The 9F as an adventure watch
Took the SBGN001 for a weekend jaunt. Hiking, snow, desert. It did great. The wear comfort on this 39mm size is fantastic.
Progress in audio localization
So years ago in grad school at UNM, I worked on audio localization. My work was on the idea of doing the convolution (applying the filter to the audio) in the wavelet domain, to extend the results from a phd student in the group. My results were poor, read about them on this page.
Then this week I saw this on Gear Patrol:
The reviews are mixed, but the really impressive part is less obvious – you use your phone camera and it uses photogrammetry to derive the geometry of your head and pinnae, and from that it creates a personal HRTF that it loads into the finger-sized gadget:
Damn. Deriving an HRTF from just a couple of pictures? As opposed to anechoic chambers and KEMAR heads?
I’m sorely tempted to buy one just to see how well it works. At $160 is a bit much for an impulse buy though.
It’s really cool to see similar work, with a big chunk of progress plus some really new and clever ideas added. This version is USB, so Android/desktop, but they do have a Bluetooth version in the works that’d work with my phone.
Infrastructure
Highway 805, and they ran the high-tension lines under:
Some clever engineering there.
Shake your bootie
I’m a fan of musical mashups, which often have clever superpositions of melody and counterpoint in them. Or just be catchy. Or good to sing/dance/drive to. The ‘Best of Bootie‘ annual is a great place to go, with free downloads of singles and full mixes. The 2018 disc just dropped and I’m enjoying it now.
Awesome. And free!
The power of rage
The plain fact of the matter is that for a lot of Americans, life simply sucks and isn’t getting better.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-warren-2020-presidential-run-beto-biden-bernie_us_5c2a9683e4b08aaf7a93090f?ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000067&ec_carp=2982874089032511906
An interesting and worthwhile read, found via LGM.
F and E Buckles and Bands closing sale
One of my go-to shops for watch bands is the inexpensive F&E Bands. I got the email today that they are closing:
My customers,
http://fandebnb.com
I have decided to get out of the watch strap business for good. I must liquidate my inventory before I close. In order to do this, I am having a closing sale. Effective now, all my inventory is 50% off, no exceptions. All straps, tools, spring bars, etc. are included in this clearance. Everything is first come first served and everything is final sale. To get this discount please use the coupon code “Closing” at checkout. Please note the shipping is not subject to the 50% discount.
Regards,
Frank Bame
Owner F and E BnB
A shame to lose them, but a large discount for us customers.
Note: Due to my own idiocy, I had the wrong site. And the wrong logo. Which would explain the issues with the discount code. Sorry.
What I like
I’ve come full circle on quartz as I transition from watch geek/writer into ‘person who needs a good watch’.
