Amazfit puts out a lot of smart watches. Unlike, say, Apple or Samsung, they are willing to make design changes that extend beyond band width and bezel diameter. I like this. The Cheetah, which is not the Cheetah Pro, is absolutely targeted towards runners. I am a runner, but I would not be if given the choice. It’s just that if my heart is going to be pounding, sweat is going to be pouring, and the mind is incapable of a more complex thought than “bad place, get out now” I might as well run so I can live in denial about the cause.
It doesn’t seem to track anything more than the Amazfit GTS mini 4. As much as I am able to tell it tracks with accuracy no beer or worse than that cheaper device. It does offer some sort of subscription-required AI features for both sleep and exercise, called Zepp Aura and Zepp Coach respectively. Not having decided to take them up even on the offered free trial I can not comment on their utility. Anecdotally, Aura is some sort of large language model, with a strong guided-meditation flavor. It seems to require a linked phone or tablet, and this is probably because the Cheetah doesn’t have cellular or WiFi connectivity.
The display is big enough, that it doesn’t feel terrible when trying to read the compressed graphs of heart rate or sleep schedule. It also tracks stress, as a function of heart rate and breathing I think, which can be kind of upsetting. The ability to see your tracked data on a display that doesn’t feel cramped though, is a feature that really shouldn’t be overlooked.
At $200 USD from Amazon with their current discount, or $30 more directly from Amazfit I think that unless the Aura subscription is awesome, or one is really keen on the excersize features, it’s probably better to get one of their less expensive models. Otherwise you’re just paying for the larger display and longer battery life. It’s comfortable to wear, slim without feeling delicate, but I do kind of feel it’s not enough of an upgrade. Maybe I should have sprung for the Cheetah Pro, or one of the more advanced devices. I do know I like it enough to keep looking at the brand.
I have a canvas notebook cover. It’s pretty and I like it. The outside is very brown for a green. The inside is on the yellow side of orange. I like it because I can toss the cheapest A5 notebooks in it without worrying about them getting mangled or having to find something to support the back of the softcover. It has a pen-loop, and it’s elastic, but it’s really meant for pens, nothing the diameter of a round or hexagonal U.S. pencil. Enter ZenZoi. The pencil I got from them is a very compelling yellow.
Ground squirrel for scale
They make pens as well, and the pencils are made to look like a posted pen. This is nice because it looks good, nice diameter, but it’s still a pencil. I’m no expert, I just enjoy a good pencil, and I feel I can say there’s much more variety if you don’t mind a narrow bodied pencil. This is true of the disposables and the fancy, name-brand, pen-companion pencils as well. That’s either true, or I’m sheltered.
A pencil that looks like a posted pen is interesting. Will it push to advance? No. It uses a standard Schmidt brand mechanism and you can choose from 0.5mm to 0.7mm. The “cap” turns slightly clockwise to advance the lead. I think maybe the pencil is too robust for the mechanism, or maybe it lacks finer quality engineering or some sort of lubrication. I say that because the twist doesn’t feel snappy. I don’t know why I think I’d prefer it to be snappy, but here we are.
Where was I? It looks nice unless you look to close. I half expect the chrome to wear off and the finish to chip. It doesn’t scream cheap, and it’s certainly not junk. Rather, I get the impression sacrifices were made to keep it under forty U.S. dollars. It’s a shame they didn’t spend a little more, in a better quality I think it could be a popular in the seventy-five too a hundred range. Maybe things will go that way, I hope they do. I’d buy another one then, for now it’s strange. It’s not anything special but it has potential.
Honestly, I knew they made notebooks, turns out they make pens and pencils as well. The Drehgriffel Nr. 2, Pencil uses a Leuchtturm1917 branded Schmidt mechanical pencil mechanism. This means that if you so desired you could replace the original 0.7mm mechanism with a 0.5mm mechanism. That might be worth doing if you’re so inclined. And I should mention you can buy both sizes of Schmidt mechanism on their own directly from Jet Pens.
Anyway, Leuchtturm1917 has made a very nice pencil. It looks good, which would be hard not to considering it’s available in every color. It feels premium. The weight is nice with lovely balance. Even the mechanism is easy to adapt to after a bit of practice. It’s a clicky pencil, but that click is achieved by a twist of the finial, rather than a press.
Drawn on a Kindle Scribe because easy
It hasn’t got a clip, and that was probably and esthetic choice, but it’s the size of a standard hexagonal U.S. pencil so it wouldn’t be impossible to find one to add on if required. The standard body size also means it fits in any loop intended for a pencil. There’s a lot to be said in favor of standard dimensions that I’ll spare you from here.
I don’t know why I tried another stumpy Kaweco 0.7mm pencil. No, that’s inaccurate. Being brass it should age noticeably, and that’s appealing. It’s heavier too, for a pencil it’s size, and that feels better in use. It’s still short though, and with such fine lead It’s hard to work large enough for it to not get in the way.
I think these are writing pencils, and I should learn to accept that. That my own habits are such I’ll never enjoy using them. It’s a shame though, it’s pretty, and feels reassuring in the hand.
Here it is from Jet Pens, if you’re interested. And you should buy it there, they’re very pleasant. Shipping is speedy and free for orders of thirty-five dollars or more.
Everyone who still owns a four function calculator once had a flat-pack desk with a dedicated spot for a CRT computer monitor.
Taxes, at least in the United States of America, are everything that’s bad about taking a test plus the experience of being politely and nonconfrontationally mugged. You have to do it, and doing it correctly relies on a number of judgement calls on your part. There shouldn’t be an objectively right or wrong question that you are not given the answer to, but there is, and the I.R.S. will tell you, but only after you get it wrong. For example, people who do art as a business have to pay taxes if that business is a person. It’s even the same form a person submits, a 1040. It’s a schedule C, instead of the itemized schedule A or standard-deduction 1040-EZ. If you, making art, amounts to another person consuming resources and brining in cash regularly, then that person needs to pay taxes even if they are a only a convenient legal fiction. They get to deduct business expenses from canvases to rent on studio space, but they gotta pay taxes on their income.
Maybe you get out the watercolors when you’re feeling stressed and sell an 8 by 10 of the façade of a listing to a relator for a couple hundred dollars every month or so. Chances are that’s you doing it, not a business. I’m sure it’s not the only thing you’re painting and even though you’re making a few bucks it’d be a stretch to call it anything but a hobby. Another good indicator in deciding the business or hobby question is your behavior. Do you save receipts and have a separate bank account? Maybe a DBA or LLC for your own protection? It’s a business, even if it operates at a loss. Do you have a website and shoot a few local weddings on the cheap for friends of a friend? Chances are you got an LLC for liability, so yeah, still a business. Use social media to connect with followers who commission works including their original character and trade nausea for a few thousand extra bucks a month while still cashing your check from the gas station? Probably a hobby, seriously, especially if you stop doing it for weeks or months at a time because you’respending too much time crying in the shower. Do commissions as your sole form of income while spending hundreds of dollars a month on un-see juice? Probably a business even if you throw caution to the winds and don’t register a P.O. box at the UPS store to keep your personal life separate.
Drawn on a Kindle Scribe because yeah I have one now.
Kaweco makes a whole lineup of writing implements that are the same body with different guts. The fountain pen is a departure, being a two-part, screw-cap affair with a nib, but you can still see the family resemblance. The rest are basically the same. Short chunky bodies with a button and a faceted body. They sell clips separately and that’s nice I suppose if you’re the sort of person to have opinions on clips.
I picked one up after finishing a couple A4 sketchbooks in pencils with leads from three through 6 millimeters. I found I quite liked the short and fat bodies. I expected to like the same sort of body in a 0.7 millimeter lead. I didn’t. Thin lead made me want to work small which made me want to do more with details which made me very aware of how much paper a stub and hand blocked out. I couldn’t hold it farther from the tip because there was only a few inches to work with anyway.
If you gotta have a thin lead, a thick lead, a ballpoint, a fountain, and a kitchen sink all in the same color way, then sure. I can see the appeal. They have some very attractive opaque and translucent plastic options, along side various metals. I expected to like it, and honestly I think I do, or as much as you can like something without ever wanting to use it. Maybe if you’re a writer? I don’t know who it’s for though.
Here’s three color families of the pencil from Jet Pens.
Sub-millimeter leads are basically all in pencil bodies that have a discernible click when the lead is advanced. This is of course for manual advance pencils only, the automatic pencils pretty much don’t click. There are many mechanical pencils out there, from fountain pen like aspirationaly priced desk queens to disposable plastic abominations that feel like they’re produced by collecting the metabolic byproducts of genetically modified escherichia coli.
The thing is, every pencil can mark a paper. A used Dodge Neon can get you to your destination as much as any Cadillac might. Whoever invited you to the party cares that you’ve shown up, not how you got there. It’s the same for art, you’re selling a product not a process. And if I die on a hill I’ll die on that one. When a work is valued for how it was made instead of what it is it’s the luxury wine market all over again. Why then does it matter how nice one pencil is compared to another? Only because you’re going to be holding it quite a lot and if it feels better in the hand that can only help.
Process matters because that’s where every artist lives. When other people start caring about where you sleep at night they stop being customers and become patrons. That’s when art becomes silly. The point though, is that be it a boardwalk caricature, an architectural mantle piece for the local B&B, an eye burning rule thirty four commission, a landscape sold on consignment off the wall of the local coffee shop, or just figure practice, process is what ought to matter to the artist and product is what ought to matter to the buyer.
Which is why having a nice consistent tooth on the paper, a comfortable grip and reassuring balance to the pencil makes a difference. It’s why a smooth lead that lays down nicely on the first stroke is important. Almost anything can get you where you want to be and that’s a valuable truth. It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t make the trip if you can’t make it in style, only that it can be worth the expense to buy the better tools if they’re affordable.
So I think I’ll write about mechanical pencils for a bit.
I do not like to travel. At times it is an unavoidable requirement of my current income model. Put aside all other reasons to dislike travel by airplane in the United States of America, flying with a fountain pen is an only an additional stress. Maybe it has a Schmidt nib that’s supposedly impervious to the pressure change of from one to two tenths of one atmosphere. Maybe you’ve flown with it in the past. Maybe you don’t mind bringing an ink bottle, not using it in transit, and are comfortable with the risk of staining a hotel sink. I don’t care how many people share a foolproof-failsafe plan or pen or anything. Will fly, will use pencil.
A wooden pencil is best for feel. No, not a Berol Black Warrior or a Blackwing, nothing you need to sharpen. Obviously feel is out the window with any pencil that takes sub-millimeter leads; if they make a wood body one that’s worth holding I’ve yet to find it. If you work large, a clutch pencil is best. A lead in the area of three millimeter is ideal. In practice the lead will be large enough to wear slow and put down an appealing line, while still keeping something like a point. Don’t get a drafting pencil of any kind, unless you’ll be drafting.
Traditional “clicky” mechanical pencils are fine. The Kaweco Sport offerings are nice. For some obscure reason I can not place the plastic bodies feel best, excluding, well, actual bodies.
Purchase nothing with an eraser. And don’t carry one either. The same goes for a smudge and a chamois. Line is king, line. Use the pencil as you would a pen. It’s not about learning the pencil, it’s about using one until coming back to pen. Keep the one attempt, one sketch approach. It’s easy to lose that without ink keeping everyone honest. It doesn’t take long to get past the drop in contrast when switching from ink to graphite.
After my most recent trip I’ve come to find the freedom of using the cheapest paper a solid enough reason to stick with pencil instead of jumping right back into ink. Plain A5 copy paper is a quarter the cost of. Rhodia number sixteen. Now, if I’m working a commission I’m not going to go cheap. That’s just not fair to the client. Drawing to turn off the noise is another thing entirely. Practice is practice, work is product. In that vein, I’ve some new kit from the stationary shop I’ll need to review soon.
I found what from as far as I can tell is an old version of the pencil. I suppose it could just as well be an authentic version of the pencil with the previous being counterfeit. It doesn’t feel like the sort of thing that would be plagued by fakes, but of course the most commonly counterfeited piece of U.S. currency is a five and that feels like as lousy an idea.
This edition has the notable feature of having “WÖRTHER GERMANY” in silver printing around the axis of the clutch release. The other version is entirely unmarked. Additionally, the angles of the facets at that end of the pencil are uniformly rounded. In the other version it’s a sharp edge.
I can’t explain it but the old version feels better. Functionally I notice no difference. By weight the old version is a touch over a gram heavier, but that’s all. I find that I prefer it.
Sleepon produces a largish lozenge shaped device that unlike most of the products in the marketplace specifically and only tracks sleep. According to their ad copy it tracks: sleep stage, breathing rate, heart rate, body movement, snoring and et cetera. I expect the et cetera is a more professional way of indicating that whatever else can be extrapolated from the data gathered by the existing sensors is already or will be pending app updates. Those sensors are an accelerometer, blood oxygen concentration monitor, and a heart rate monitor. If that doesn’t seem like terribly much, one should keep in mind that any one sensor can provide multiple tracked values either alone or in conjunction with another sensor. A heart rate sensor will not only allow for recording of current heart rate, but heart rate over time and therefore heart rate variability. It all comes down to what can be done with data in the app. First, about the device itself. It’s something that fits into a silicone ring style holder to be worn on a finger overnight. The holder is open on two sides, one opening is for the sensor compliment which faces the inside of the finger. The other opening is opposite, and exists for the proprietary two contact charging base. The charging base is rubberized on the bottom, and has a noticeable weight, which is nice, but a micro USB female input which is not nice. Officially the ring has a two night battery life, you may get three, but in practice a habit should then be formed where the ring lives on the base and is put on the finger just before sleep, and is returned to the base upon waking. That’s a further important point. It’s constantly sampling, and is not intended to be worn except while sleeping. In my particular situation this is inconvenient because I have a tendency to lay down and sleep whenever and wherever I think I might be able to. There’s no assurance that it’ll be beside the right nightstand. Of course wearing the device is important because the bigger the dataset the more potentially useful it is and the greater the chance that once can track improvement over time. What might be improved? Quite a bit, and to get an idea of what bits exactly it will be necessary to see what the app tracks. Blood oxygen level, resting heart rate, heart rate variability, time asleep and time awake, sleep stages (light, deep, REM, or awake), the time spent in each, and finally though perhaps most interestingly apneas and hypopneas. Impaired or obstructed breathing during sleep can do worse things than inflict snoring on anyone laying beside. Low oxygen levels during sleep are a significant contributor to morning tiredness, or headache. The app will recommend some immediate actions such as avoiding sleeping on ones back, but it will also suggest weight loss and exercises to improve fitness and lung function. That’s where having a lot of history comes in handy. Along those same lines the app offers a thoughtful export feature for everyone who’s not averse to a little data mining. The app itself takes the time period approach and provides daily, weekly, and monthly top level tabs in addition to an aggregate sleep score out of one hundred. There’s the option to create labels to assign to ones sleep and the ability to maintain a sleep diary in the app. Those are both features which only allow for getting out of them what’s put into them. Next comes sleep time and sleep stage. For each of these it’s going to give you a formal rank of the Goldilocks variety. A value called AHI is presented, where the acronym is for apnea hypopnea index. I expect very few people will be aware of or comfortable with that measurement initially, over time it should become familiar and useful. Heart rate and heart rate variability follow, along with blood oxygen, and a log of movement during sleep. The movement can be sort of obscure on its own, but viewed against the sleep stage graph it proves more interesting. I’ve found that it, at times when I wake but the tracker does not register myself as having awoken, may just register significantly increased movement instead. The tracking of ones sleep deficit is interesting as well. It’s one of those things that people are aware of, and likely do not keep track of in any concrete way. It may be slightly too easy to let it turn from a novel metric into a source of creeping anxious dread. For one hundred nine USD it may seem a bit expensive for a sleep-exclusive device. For anyone thinking that, I’ll just point out that they hit all the core metrics, don’t lock anything behind a subscription, and for people who really enjoy the way cellphones killed the wristwatch only occupies a finger, and then only while sleeping. Consider picking one up from their US shop, or for international orders.
Uncredited Work 