danielmarkwig

[danielmarkwig]

Gravel Riding

Recently, I’ve discovered gravel biking as my sports of choice ... riding a bike over forest roads, single track routes, gravel roads is finally something that keeps me fit while not boring me to death! Yey!

I’ve been the proud owner of a Cannondale Slate “gravel bike” – or “new road bike” as they are called by Cannondale – for a few months now. It’s the configuration with SRAM’s 1x Apex group set.

Slowly I’ve made the bike my own so that I’m now very comfortable with it. Different to my Canyon Endurace road bike, the Slate took some time getting used to and also some changes.

Since I bought it second hand in June I’ve changed the seat post, saddle, bar stem, and handlebar. I’ve gone tubeless. And I had to invest in a new derailleur as the old one was bent, most probably already by the previous owner.

Slate on Königsstuhl, looking over Heidelberg and the Neckar river.

Riding field paths is a lot of fun with the Slate.

Slate on the dirt tracks close to Neckar river ...

... and finally, on dirt roads all across Kurpfalz.

So why the changes? 

Well, I really like the comfort of the Ergon CF3 carbon seat post. It has a little flex to it and takes a lot of punch out of potholes and other rough terrain. Similar the Brooks Cambium saddle. Like on my Endurace I’ve opted for the Cambium C13 (137 width) with cutout. It’s the most comfortable saddle I’ve ever ridden ... and I like the grip of the vulcanized rubber surface so that you don’t slide around when riding.

Concerning the handlebar stem, I’ve had the hardest time optimizing it ... and I’m still not sure I’ve reached the perfect solution. But considering my history of back troubles I wanted to reduce reach and saddle superelevation. The Slate (size L, for that matter” comes with a stem of 100 mm at a 6° angle. After trying 90 mm and 80 mm at the same angle I finally settled for 80 mm and 20°.

Slate with new Easton AE70 AX handlebar.

Combined with my new handlebars – Easton AE70 AX, 400 mm width – this is a great setup! The bars have a moderate reach and drop and a decent 16° flare. All of this, combined with the new stem, allows me to ride much more often on the drops than I used to ... while still giving me the opportunity to relax my back when riding on the hoods.

As I said ... took me a while. But now I think I’ve discovered a hobby that I’ll stick with for quite some time ...

[danielmarkwig]

In case you need to justify the obvious.

[danielmarkwig]

Well, why not?!

Sylvain Sarrailh  -  https://tohad.deviantart.com  -  https://www.instagram.com/sylvainsarrailh  -  http://tohad.tumblr.com  -  https://www.behance.net/Tohad  -  https://drawcrowd.com/tohad  -  http://badassfanarts.tumblr.com  -  http://heatown.com/portfolio  -  https://www.facebook.com/TohadChaos  -  https://twitter.com/SylvainSarrailh  -  https://es.pinterest.com/tohad  -  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGMM318uNUVz06Q8dQXUsgw  -  http://tohad.artstation.com  -  http://www.imdb.com/name/nm8335173

[danielmarkwig]

That is hilarious and so much fun ... gay power armor for the win!

This is from a conservative website complaining about Fallout being liberal propaganda but it’s really funny so I’m stealing it for the gays.

[danielmarkwig]

The five minute journal

I recently started journalling again to help me sort out some things ... this time with the Mac/iOS app Day One. And so far it seems to work out fine.

One additional hack for it I found with TextExpander snippets for the Five Minutes Journal: http://dayoneapp.com/2017/01/five-ways-to-automate-your-day-one-journal-with-textexpander/ ... but originally the idea’s from here: https://thehustle.co/the-five-minute-journal-will-make-you-happier

Not sure yet if this will make me “happier”. But I can imagine that it helps me be more mindful. And that would be something in itself, already. Right?!

In any case it’s a possibility to play around with TextExpander snippets ... 😉

[danielmarkwig]

My birthday acquisition ... a “Just a little serious” pocket knife by french knife maker Roland Lannier. It’s the Joker version with scales of purple and green tartan micarta. Unfortunately it’s hard to capture the beauty in a photo.

I like Roland’s knives for their design and functionality. And for their iconoclasm in the French knife making world. 

And I adore the Joker for the reference ...

[danielmarkwig]

That’s a small part of what we do ... ;-)

New Work Breakfast at the SAP AppHaus Heidelberg (Part II)

The “New Work Breakfast” is an interactive format by the AppHaus to invite all SAP employees to join an exchange about new concepts, ideas, and behaviors around the topic of “New Work” or the “Future of Work”. The topic and content of each session are provided by the participants of the dialog!

The New Work Breakfast happening at the SAP AppHaus in Heidelberg takes place on every first Friday of the month. Join the next one on June 2, 2017. If you are interested in our new work approach, contact us at apphaus@sap.com.

Great design works best if we create it together.

More on User Experience & Design: http://experience.sap.com/designservices

Follow us: Twitter: @SAP_designs LinkedIn: bit.ly/sap_designs Facebook: facebook.com/AppHausHD  

[danielmarkwig]

Here we go. Finally. American Gods premieres April 30th. Yeah.

[danielmarkwig]

Great little tricks to enhance your still photography.

[danielmarkwig]

Great collection!

Tips on Drawing Hands Tutorial

Hope this is helpful!

Twitter

DeviantArt

[danielmarkwig]

Promoting design literacy here. Or maybe just decent behaviour.

[danielmarkwig]

The Architecture of “Ghost in the Shell (1995)”

[danielmarkwig]

The TV-adaption of my all time favorite book gets its first trailer ... American Gods.

[danielmarkwig]

And now for one of the most undervalued parts of TV series ... the title sequences. The Emmy nominations are in. And spectacular. (via 2016 Emmy Nominations for Main Title Design)

[danielmarkwig]

So looking forward to this ... 

The American Gods TV series is finally happening - and according to author Neil Gaiman, it’s looking “shit hot”.

Gaiman told Digital Spy that he first met with showrunner Bryan Fuller in 2014 on the set of Hannibal, to discuss adapting his 2001 fantasy novel.

“I flew out to Toronto and met Bryan - we just talked about American Gods generally and he decided to come on board,” the author recalled.

Two years on and the series is in production at Starz, with Gaiman telling DS that he’s thrilled with Fuller’s vision.

“For me, American Gods is a novel about the immigrant experience as much as it is anything else,” he said. “It’s about coming to America and becoming American, and what you have to give up and what you’re allowed to keep…

“For Bryan, I think it’s a show much more about belief… and belief is one of the engines that drives American Gods, but it’s much more important, I think, in Bryan’s vision.

"He and Michael Green have been writing these really powerful scripts, the casting is shit hot… and the footage that I’ve been seeing is also shit hot.”

Not that Gaiman’s seen a full episode of the adaptation yet…

“They are shooting the first three episodes at once, which is incredibly frustrating if you’re me and they’ve now been shooting for three weeks or whatever and there’s still not one complete episode,” he laughed.

“But it’s looking amazing. It’s got that thing where the production designer and the director and Bryan all have a vision…

"It’s definitely hyper-real, and it’s gorgeous, and I’m so looking forward to seeing a rough cut of something… when they finish one!”

Ricky Whittle will star in American Gods as Shadow Moon, a man thrust into a conflict between Gods when his beloved wife Laura (Emily Browning) is killed in a car accident.

Ian McShane, Peter Stormare and Crispin Glover will also appear in the series,expected to premiere on Starz in early 2017.

[danielmarkwig]

Good to know ...

[danielmarkwig]

What Beate and I had to say about Design Thinking and the SAP AppHaus in Heidelberg at the Kreativland BW conference (only available in German, sorry).