(Initial Review) Five Ten Anasazi climbing shoes

BACKSTORY

A few years ago I purchased a pair of Five Ten Spire rock shoes, which have served me exceptionally well on all fronts. Well, almost all fronts. I found them lacking a certain aggressiveness when it came to bouldering, something I find myself doing much more than trad (or even indoor route) climbing these days. After developing my technique and strength, I found that my Spires weren’t well suited to some bouldering manoeuvres, particularly heel hooking requiring a lot of side or toe stick, toe hooking, and very fine edging.

One thing that I did appreciate about my Spires was their ability to stick a smear so well that I often warmed up indoors by doing traversing laps on a juggy route only smearing. This depends on their ability to bend well, something most very aggressive bouldering shoes don’t do. I knew what I was looking for in my next specialized shoe: a compromise between aggressive, stiff, edge-seeking rubber-coated rock magnet on the one hand, and supple smear-and-stick-like-glue on the other.

FIRST STEPS

My first attempt landed a pair of Five Ten 5X in my pack, which I promptly returned after only one outdoor session. I found that the “appropriate size” for me was far too tight. After topping out and jumping off an 8-foot boulder, I thought my left big toe was going to snap at the first knuckle. I was swimming in the next size up, so they were out. An additional thing I found disturbing: the bright, neon-green dye used on the leather uppers of the 5X bled all over my feet, on very minimal sweating, but refused to wash off my feet for days. This is not what I’ve become accustomed to with Five Ten products, which have so far been great.

After another couple of hours at my local Mountain Equipment Co-op, heel-hooking, edging, smearing, and jumping down after simulated top-outs, I settled on the Five Ten AnasaziLV:

Five Ten AnasaziLV rock shoes

Yes, it’s a woman’s shoe.

THE SKINNY

Women’s shoes tend to be narrower on the whole than men’s shoes. I needed an exceptionally narrow heel cup and a narrow, pointy toe. The Anasazi held up well in the store and was disturbingly comfortable (almost to the point of going down another half US size). I wear a 9.5 street shoe, but an 8.5 Spire and AnasaziLV.

I tried them out in the local gym recently, and loved them. I tried them out with all the moves I was unhappy doing with my Spires, and was pleasantly surprised at how well the Anasazi fared. The extra rubber on the heel cup making hooking at odd angles a pleasure, as the extra rubber on the toe makes toe hooking easier. The dual velcro straps keep the shoe on tightly but undo in a snap to let your feet breathe after a few hard problems. They were also supple enough to smear adequately, though not yet as well as my broken-in Spires. Maybe time and a bit more breaking in will improve their smearing ability, or, more precisely, my ability to smear with them.

MY VERDICT

I like them; they’re a good compromise between a trad shoe and a bouldering shoe.

(Review) Solio: Portable Solar Energy

Solio with accessories

Last summer, I went on a fishing/camping trip to Lac Chigoubiche in mid-northern Quebec, just below Baie James. Needless to say, we had electronics–a GPS, GMRS and CB radios, and iPod–but were hundreds of kilometres from the nearest electrical outlet. So, I ordered a Solio.

ACCESSORIES

It has become a useful–and fun–tool for technology. The Solio is essentially a battery pack attached to three compact solar panels. The battery can (and should) be charged from a wall adaptor if it’s going to be out of the sun for extended periods of time. Once the Solio is full, you should be able to charge most of your devices with one of the selection of so-called “nibs”, which are really adaptors for various devices, that ship with the Solio. I was happy to see that it shipped with a USB (device mini and host types) but floored to see the inclusion of a 12V car cigarette lighter adaptor! I also use a Telus Mike (Nextel in the USA) cellular phone, using Motorola iDEN handsets with a non-standard Motorola connector. I was able to order an iDEN “nib” to charge my unusual phone.

The Solio ships with a suction cup which I have found performs poorly unless the surfaces are as sterile as an operating theatre. Still, it does hang on to the Solio well. However, as most cars windows are coated ultraviolet-blocking material,attaching it to the inside of your car’s windshield will reduce (or eliminate) the efficiency of charging it in your car.

This brings me to my pencil dilemma. The Solio team though it would be clever to put a pencil-sized hole in the centre of the Solio and claim that a pencil slid through it (image) will be enough to stabilize it, and to keep it pointed at the sun. This has, in my experience, proven difficult. There are two main disadvantages to this system: the Solio slides down the pencil, and a pencil is not something you necessarily want to carry in your Gregory ultralight alpine backpack (for fear of tearing the bag or breaking the pencil). I have instead opted to use nylon 1/4″ bolt with washers and a wing-nut:

Solio with nylon bolt and wing-nut

This configuration allows me to lower the wing-nut and increase the angle of the panels, or to tighten it and lower it to the horizon. A longer bolt will allow more room to adjust the array’s angle. The nylon bolt, washers and wing-nut are important, since they’re much less likely to damage the device than metal hardware, and cost under 2 $. My set-up is more rugged, more steady, and will fit inside my Pelican 1030 case:

Solio with accessories in Pelicon 1030 case.

The Solio is not water-resistant (or, really, anything-resistant), so if you’re planning on taking it outdoors, invest in a Pelican case, or other watertight, shock-resistant container.

CHARGING

The Solio will, on a full charge, provide enough power to fully charge about one device. At 45° to 48° north latitude, the Solio will, however, take many hours to fully charge in the full summer sun, and much longer in the winter, or in overcast skies. Occasionally, it can take several days, if you’re not diligent about re-orienting the array to face the sun at it’s geometric normal (i.e., keeping the sun perfectly perpendicular to the solar array). At lower latitudes, however, the Solio should be able to completely charge in a few hours.

It should be noted that the Solio’s solar array does not directly power your device. The array charges the battery internal and the battery, in turn, charges your device. This means that you can not put your Solio in the sun, attached to your iPod, and power your iPod continually. This has not proven to be a big problem for me, though it’s likely because I understand that particular limitation and have been happy with it.

I’ve seen my Solio charge (albeit slowly) in skies so dark and cloudy that nothing casted even a hint of a shadow. Other than cleaning the device (which I’ve not yet had to do) and keeping the battery charged, it has been completely maintenance-free.

VERDICT

I often stick my Solio to my apartment window and use it to chage my cell phone. I get a nice feeling out of using my own solar array to power one of my devices. It’s been a useful asset to my outdoorsy and energy-concious lifestyle.

The Hang drum

I want one.

I do not, however, have 1200 € and time to go to Bern to pick one up.

Clearly the most useful machine ever built

According to my friend Nebu, this is “clearly the most useful machine ever built”.

Post-modern engineering; very nice.

Debian package source goes too far?

Last year I took an absolutely fascinating class with Dr Natasha Artemeva in the applied linguistics domain of rhetorical genre studies. In this class we discussed, essentially, the function(s) of language in different contexts. For example, we examined such things as tax reports, blog comments, and the construction of academic papers in mathematics.

One thing that struck me, as a programmer, was the mention of some programmers putting jokes into their source code. I’ve never done that, even in code that I alone maintain; I’ve never seen a use. The interest of this particular class jokes was that they were placed in code that was maintained by a single person. The intrigue is, of course: who will ultimately read and appreciate the humor, other than the author? I’ll leave that question unanswered, and the paper uncited (due to my poor organization).

Well, my good friend Nebu has recently brought to my attention something in a similar vein: the inclusion of an inside joke, and a flame, but in open-source code. The source code of dpkg “quodlibet” has been reported with bug number 477454 as containing some very insulting content.

Surely, from a rhetorical genre perspective, this serves an altogether different function than the jokes I mention above.