Hammerhead Karoo 2 has landed

I pre-ordered the Hammerhead Karoo 2 during the last quarter of 2020, fully aware that I might be getting a device that would still require significant levels of “continuous enhancements”. In other words, I bought into the promise of Hammerhead eventually delivering “the world’s finest cycling computer” through software updates.

I want to point out right away that in many ways, the Karoo 2 already is a very good bike computer. In other ways, however, the Karoo 2 is lagging behind its competition. Unlike others, I never considered returning the device. Instead, I am looking forward to see the improvements that Hammerhead hopefully will be introducing over time. As I continue to use the Karoo 2, I will be updating this list of unresolved issues that in my view should get fixed as soon as possible. My other cycling computer is a Wahoo Elemnt Roam.

Limited battery capacity and USB-C port

I expect that recharging the Karoo 2 will become necessary on long rides. However, charging the device while in its mount is not possible with the supplied cable. There just isn’t enough space between the base of the unit and the handlebar. Instead, I use the UGREEN Right Angle USB-C to -A Cable to connect the Karoo 2 to a Zendure SuperMini 5K. Conveniently, this also keeps the USB-C port covered so that I won’t have to lose any of the tiny rubber caps that came in the box…

Despite its IP67 rating, charging the Karoo 2 in wet conditions may yet damage your device.

Missing auto lap functionality

The Karoo 2 does not offer auto lap functionality. Currently, there is no way to set reminders of any kind. Hammerhead merely say that they are “working on adding more towards the lap functionality“. This appears to be a long-standing issue with users of the Karoo 1 as well. The auto lap feature now has reportedly spent more than a year in the “development pipeline”, yet Hammerhead are not committing to a “dedicated timeline for its implementation“. “The world’s finest cycling computer” it is not.

Display delayed in battery save mode

When in Battery Save mode, the Karoo 2 is conserving energy by keeping off the screen as much as possible. The device will announce the next navigational cue with an audio alert and, after a short intervall, switch the screen back on for a limited time to show the route ahead. Seems like a neat solution, until you realise that the intervall between the audio alert and the screen switching on is too long by a fraction. You end up having to delay your reaction for just long enough to avoid looking down onto a black screen. Not ideal while riding a bicycle.

Accessing the dashboard

It is only a small thing, but when navigating to dashboard.hammerhead.io, visitors are presented with a form to set up a new user account. Each and every time. Registered users are required to change to yet another page to authenticate. This is only getting more annoying with time.
Hammerhead, you’ve got this backwards. If anyone splashed out 400 EUR on your new cycling computer, they will be motivated to look for the link to set up the required user account. Registered users shouldn’t have to jump through unecessary hoops after that.

Komoot limited to 50 planned tours

The Dashboard is supposed to facilitate the integration of the Karoo 2 with services such as Strava, Ride with GPS, Komoot and others. Unfortunately, synchronisation of available routes does not take place automatically and requires the use of either a computer or a phone.
For Komoot in particular, there currently is a limitation that will only allow you to “sync your 50 most recent planned tours“. Having used other bike computers in the past, I am stunned that this should even be an issue.

The Dashboard provides rudimentary tools for route planning and live tracking only. With this I think that Hammerhead are taking the right approach. As a direct result, however, there is an absolute requirement for integration with third party services to be flawless. After setting things up, there should be no need for user intervention and this is where Hammerhead are falling short.

Useless live tracking links

With Software Build Version 1.187.987, Hammerhead appear to be pleased that they “fixed an issue that prevented users from viewing a Live Tracking link if they weren’t logged in ahead of clicking the link.” They are missing the point. What is preventing users from viewing any link is having to register and then authenticate every time they want to access the link. Until such time that Hammerhead get rid of these short-sighted requirements, actual owners of the Karoo 2 won’t be sharing anything.

In the meantime, getting a SIM and data plan for your Karoo 2 does not appear to make a lot of sense. Unless, that is, you’re planning on inflicting Live Tracking links on friends and family…

Hammerhead no longer require registration to view Live Tracking links. This is a welcome improvement and, in conjunction with a dedicated SIM, appears to be working very well.
hammerhead.io

Die beste Instanz

“Wir führen diese Debatte über Rassismus auf einer total primitiven Ebene. Es handelt sich um ein Menschenrecht. Schutz vor Diskriminierung ist ein Menschenrecht.”
Natasha A. Kelly

“Ich würde mir wünschen, dass wir wegkommen davon diese Ereignisse, wie sie jetzt auch im WDR passiert sind, immer als Einzelfälle zu diskutieren. Und es ist ja heute immer wieder aufgekommen, daß es sich um strukturelle Probleme handelt, die nach ’45 nicht einfach aufgehört haben. Und ich glaube es gibt ‘ne Situation, in der man sich in Deutschland sehr, sehr stark wünscht, daß nach ’45 ein besseres Deutschland entstanden ist [sic]. Aber der Wunsch alleine erzeugt noch nicht die Realität. Und da brauchen strukturelle Probleme strukturelle Lösungen.”
Max Czollek

Gemeinsam mit ihren Gästen formuliert Enissa Amani eine bemerkenswerte Antwort auf die vom WDR am 09.11.2020 erstmalig ausgestrahlte Sendung “Die letzte Instanz“, deren Umgang mit dem Thema Rassismus bestenfalls als naiv zu bezeichnen ist.
www.youtube.com

They stormed the Capitol. Their apps tracked them.

“The location-tracking industry exists because those in power allow it to exist. Plenty of Americans remain oblivious to this collection through no fault of their own. But many others understand what’s happening and allow it anyway. They feel powerless to stop it or were simply seduced by the conveniences afforded in the trade-off. The dark truth is that, despite genuine concern from those paying attention, there’s little appetite to meaningfully dismantle this advertising infrastructure that undergirds unchecked corporate data collection.” Charlie Warzel and Stuart A. Thompson show the ease with which supposedly anonymised data from your smartphone is re-identified. From nothing to hide to nowhere to hide—we are all Americans now.
www.nytimes.com

Jan Heine – Bicycle Quarterly/Compass Bicycles

“…but beyond that you just go for a ride and, you know, usually, especially when you are riding with friends, you’re talking. Not about bikes, about anything. And so you sort of forget the whole bike thing and the bike intrudes when it does things that you don’t expect. Or you never notice the bike, you say ‘man, this is a great bike’ we just rode, you know, 75 miles and not once did I think about the bike. You know, so it sort of the best bike is the one that you don’t notice. And, you know, people sometimes think because we focus so much about bikes [sic] and technology that we’re constantly thinking about bikes. But I think about my bike when I am not riding, so that I don’t have to think about it when I’m riding.”
Jan Heine
www.youtube.com

Ti flies when you’re having fun

“Nevertheless, the fact remains that the age of 40 has long since disappeared in my helmet mirror (no, I don’t use a helmet mirror, it’s just a metaphor), and while colonoscopies and mole removals may take up more of my time than I’d like, overall I’m rather enjoying pedaling down this particular stretch of road. In fact, I like to think my latest velocipedal acquisition is a perfect encapsulation of where I’m at right now.” Bike Snob NYC, through space and time, has recently given himself a trans-dimensional high five for finally aquiring that new bicycle.
bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com

How is he the victim?


“How is he the victim in this scenario? This is a pregnant woman who had to arrange new levels of protection because of the amount of racist abuse she was receiving, which escalated when she announced that she was pregnant. She’s always had racist abuse, but when she announced her pregnancy it multiplied because there is so much toxic racism in our society. … That’s not Danny Baker’s fault but what is Danny Baker’s fault is that he did something which was so offensive that when I first saw it I actually thought it was a prank. I just thought nobody, nobody who the BBC gives a platform [sic] could be stupid enough to say this and not intend it to be racist. Because it is one of [sic] and we could talk about unintended racism or micro-aggression, this is none of those. This is the most blatant, clear cut example of racism. It is a [sic] Generations of people have recognised this as an overtly racist trope. Within people’s lifetimes, black people still being compared to monkeys and dehumanised regularly. … So, I’m not interested in him. I’m not interested in him or what happens to him. By the way, he’s already done a show which was more successful than his previous shows since he’s been sacked. So, if you are worried about his career then I suspect there is no reason to. I am not interested in him, I’m worried about the millions of black people who regularly live with this kind of abuse and then have to be in spaces like this where everybody denies it’s a problem. That is something that I could not feel more strongly about and I’m living it right now in this conversation. It’s not good enough.”
Afua Hirsch

Danny Baker, a mulit-award winning broadcaster, has recently been fired from the BBC after seemingly comparing Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor to a monkey.

The secrets of surveillance capitalism

“The game is no longer about sending you a mail order catalogue or even about targeting online advertising. The game is selling access to the real-time flow of your daily life—your reality—in order to directly influence and modify your behavior for profit.” According to Shoshana Zuboff, we urgently need to revoke the collective agreement with the practices that result in the dispossession of behavior.
www.faz.net

Nine lessons

“Too much of our political debate just insults people’s intelligence and just suggests that every facet of Brexit you don’t like is purely a feature of only the Prime Minister’s version of it, rather than intrinsic to leaving.” Sir Ivan Rogers advocates the need for serious substance to replace plausible bullshit.
www.liverpool.ac.uk

Let’s be honest about what’s really driving Brexit: bigotry

“And those who promise that leaving the EU will deliver ‘control’ are really promising something quite specific: a social and cultural reboot. As well as being morally contemptible, of course, this is also a complete impossibility. But those who pose as our leaders have allowed this absurd and horrible vision of Britain’s future to take root. Let us be honest about what this is all about. And then let those who are responsible take full ownership of whatever consequences lie ahead.” Matthew d’Ancona does away with the pretence surrounding Brexit.
www.theguardian.com

Britain fell for a neoliberal con trick—even the IMF says so

“I want to address the most stubborn belief of all: that running a small state is the soundest financial arrangement for governments and voters alike. Because 40 years on from the Thatcher revolution, more and more evidence is coming in to the contrary.” Aditya Chakrabortty on asset-stripping the United Kingdom.
www.theguardian.com

Brexit – the story so far

by Swanpride

Honestly, this whole mess has been ridiculous way longer. I mean, so far the story kind of like this [sic]:

UK: Yeah, your stupid little project, we don’t want to be part of it.
EU: That’s okay, we will do our thing over here and you can do your thing over there.
UK: We have changed our mind, we want to join after all.
France: Not sure if that is a good idea.
UK: Pretty please?????
EU: Okay, we kind of convinced France.
UK: Great. Now do what we want or we leave.
EU: What do you want?
UK: We don’t want to be in the Euro.
EU: Done.
UK: But we want the right to do Euro clearing in London.
EU: Done.
UK: We want a rebate.
EU: Done.
UK: We don’t want to be part of Schengen.
EU: Done.
UK: We want to expand the EU to the eastern European countries.
EU: Done.
UK: And we want Turkey to join.
EU: Eh…not sure about that one…I guess we can talk about this, depending on how Turkey develops…
UK: And we want extra rules for immigration because of all of those Eastern Europeans coming to us.
EU: But you wanted this. And you don’t even use the options you already have to control immigration.
UK: Otherwise we leave!
EU: Okay, if you want to. There is nothing more we can give you! Plus, we are kind of busy over here with a refugee crisis. You know, you could help, too? You were the one messing around in the middle east for centuries after all.
UK: You cause too much immigration! And you want Turkey to join! We have voted to leave.
EU: Yes, we noticed. Well, you know the rules, no trade negotiations until you trigger article 50 and then we first need to talk about how we entangle the UK from the EU [sic]. Than we can talk about trade.
UK: We need some time to discuss this.
EU: We aren’t in any hurry.
UK: We have now triggered article 50.
EU: Great so now we can talk about the divorce.
UK: But we want to talk about trade.
EU: First we need to clear up a number of important issues. So what is your suggestion?
UK: —
EU: How about this?
UK: No, totally inacceptable. What we want is our cake and eat it too.
EU: That is impossible.
UK: Go whistle.
EU: Ticktock.
UK: We have talked among ourselves. We want a transitional period or we won’t get done in time.
EU: Well, we might if you don’t delay all the time…but okay, provided that we made some progress. So what is you suggestion.
UK: We want all the advantage of the single market and the customs union while following our own standards and no free movement.
EU: That is impossible.
UK: YOU ARE BLACKMAILING US!!!!!
tvtropes.org

This work is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 license.

Die AAA-Bürger

“So wie Alibaba und Amazon wissen, wofür sich ihre Nutzer interessieren und was sie als Nächstes kaufen könnten, will der chinesische Staat aus den Datenspuren seiner Bürger ableiten, wie sie sich in der Vergangenheit verhalten haben und in der Zukunft verhalten könnten und sie nach einem Punktesystem entsprechend bewerten. Wer zum Beispiel über das Internet gesunde Babynahrung bestellt, soll Pluspunkte erhalten. Wer sich hingegen Pornos ansieht oder zu viel Zeit mit Computerspielen verbringt, muss mit Abzügen rechnen.” Da trifft es sich gut, daß Felix Lee nichts zu verbergen hat und ein solcher Umgang mit Nutzerdaten überhaupt nur in China in Erwägung gezogen wird…
www.zeit.de

With thanks to Michael August

Wie, Du bist nicht bei Whatsapp?

“Wer Whatsapp liebt, sollte besser nicht weiterlesen, oder vielleicht gerade dann, denn Liebe macht ja bekanntlich oft blind.” Boris Pohler, selbst Lehrer und Vater von zwei Kindern, bennent den Preis für die Verwendung des weit verbreiteten Dienstes und erklärt, warum jeder Nutzer gegen deutsches Recht verstößt.
blog.pohlers-web.de

Zur Hölle mit den Reichen

“Das System ist zutiefst krank. Es ist unmoralisch und unanständig. Die Wut darauf wächst. Sie sucht sich nur die falschen Ziele. Der Hass der Betrogenen gilt eher dem Kriegs- als dem Steuerflüchtling. Unser Planet ist ein Paradies für Arschlöcher.” Jacob Augstein bringt es auf den Punkt.
www.spiegel.de

Motor der Ungleichheit

“Das vielleicht spektakulärste Beispiel dafür ist der Google-Mutterkonzern Alphabet. 2003, weniger als ein Jahr vor dem Börsengang, übertrug ‘Google USA’ seine Suchmaschinen- und Werbetechnologie an ‘Google Holdings’, eine in Irland eingetragene Tochter. Dank des irischen Steuerrechts kann das Unternehmen seine Gewinne mit einen Zwischenstopp auf den Bermudas versteuern. 15,5 Milliarden Dollar waren das bei Google im Jahr 2015, der Steuersatz für Unternehmen auf der Inselgruppe: null Prozent.” Gabriel Zucman fordert ein Finanzregister als effektive Waffe gegen die Intransparenz der Weltfinanzen.
www.sueddeutsche.de