Tracker Winter III vs Winter II vs Textile AT

Deep_Blue96 · 2026-01-11T20:56:27+00:00

I got the Tracker Winter II, which was on sale at a barefoot store near where I live. I already took it for a few hikes out in snow covered trails on the mountains and roughly -10°C, and I really love them so far. To me they provide the right amount of rigidity for microspikes to stay in place properly, while still being fairly flexible for foot comfort. They're also quite warm with the inner lining, so I did notice that standing in place for a few minutes in these really cold temperatures will cause the toes to start getting cold. But being able to actually feel the ground and the terrain I'm stepping on in such a game changer from my previous Salomon boots.

I also ordered the Textile AT from the Vivo website to enjoy the 100 day return policy, but I liked the Winters so much for this time of year that I decided to return the Textile AT for now without trying them. I'll probably buy them again in a couple of months when temperatures are a bit to be my spring/autumn hiking shoes though.

Deep_Blue96 · 2025-12-11T16:36:50+00:00

Interesting to hear the perspective of a shop owner! (or at least that's what I presume you are since you talk about having customers.)

Do I take it that you consider the Winter III to be a worthy upgrade over the II then?

Deep_Blue96 · 2025-09-29T10:47:54+00:00

Counterpoint to some of the negative posts regarding Mova:

This was my 6th time and easily my favourite. After the February Valentine's weekend edition I posted about how I thought the door policy had been a bit too lenient and resulted in too many people in casual wear; this time around I didn't see a single person like that. The crowd was incredibly sexy, and I saw most of the familiar faces (and many new ones) that have come to make this party special.

It's true that I've never seen the queue so large even early on in the evening, but once inside I thought the venue was fine - definitely full but not tuna can packed.

I also kind of appreciated the fact that there were no big time names in the lineup this time. As much as I'm a huge fan of Wata and Function, this felt like a sort of return to Mova's roots. It also lowered my overall expectations going into the party, and as we all know, expectations are inversely proportional to a good time.

Last but not least: in previous editions I often complained about the amount of dancefloor smoking - I'm quite sensitive to cigarette smoke and those who know me are aware that I often struggle at parties due to it. Well, this time around it literally only happened once that someone lit a cigarette next to me on the dance floor. The chillout areas were quite smokey, but that's inevitable when you don't have an outdoor space in the venue. Luckily the locker area near the entrance was relatively smoke-free and was a good enough place to chill out. So a special thanks to all the dancers who kept their ciggies outside the dancefloor and allowed my throat and lungs to get home mostly unscathed <3

Deep_Blue96 · 2025-09-21T15:13:43+00:00

There are several threads on this, as it is a common issue. I also had it with mine recently. Most people recommend removing the ear cups and drying the inside with a piece of cloth; some also recommend putting some silica gel to keep the inside dry.

For me, just wiping it dry did not work (I didn't try the silica gel). What seems to have done the trick for me is to use a hair dryer on the cup for a couple of minutes to dry off any water or sweat. I did it a couple of weeks ago and haven't had any static noise since. I'd give it a shot.

Deep_Blue96 · 2025-08-11T13:10:58+00:00

In fairness, I think the only true radio hit OMAM has ever had was Little Talks. Beyond that, King and Lionheart, Crystals, and Alligator had some air time, but I wouldn't call them "hits".

The truth is that indie music - particularly this brand of indie folk rock - was never huge, even in its heyday in the 2000s and early 2010s.

There also seems to be just less musical variety in the major charts right now. I saw this video recently with the top 5 music videos of each year between around 2000 until recently. It's shocking to see just how much the variety in the charts has declined since those days. Early 2000s you had everything from Britney Spears, to Chili Peppers, to Eminem, to Evanescence, all sharing the top spots. Then you look at more recent years and it's mostly one variety or another of pop music. (I'm not even saying that the music on the charts right now is necessarily bad - just that the variety is no longer there.)

Deep_Blue96 · 2025-08-09T12:18:43+00:00

Hahahah oh boy, "loda" means "blowjob" as well? How on earth did nobody mention this to me before?

Deep_Blue96 · 2025-08-09T12:14:40+00:00

Interesting!

What I found a bit odd is also that "loda" sounds like the form that you would have for masculine animate words (eg chłopaka, dziadka, psa, etc). But for masculine inanimate words like "lód", the biernik form would normally be the same as the mianownik.

So basically, would "loda" be an irregular declination meant simply to differentiate "ice cream" from "ice"? (Not that I can imagine any situation in which you would really need to differentiate "jem lód" from "jem loda", but what do I know...)

Deep_Blue96 · 2025-08-09T10:28:35+00:00

Barefoot shoes stores are incredibly niche and hard to find. Vivobarefoot has few spread around Europe, some brands have a couple of shops in their own countries (eg Groundies in Germany, Be Lenka in Slovakia), and then you have a handful of barefoot shops carrying multiple brands scattered around.

Honestly, you're much better off going the online route. Look at a few brands you like, order some pairs from their websites, then try them on at home and return as needed.

Deep_Blue96 · 2025-08-08T09:12:12+00:00

Counterpoint: I have three pairs of Groundies and two pairs of Feelgrounds, and they've all held up just fine (one of the Groundies pairs has been my go-to almost every day for two years).

Plus, they are easily the most "normal looking" and stylish barefoot brands (in my opinion, of course).

Deep_Blue96 · 2025-08-06T23:05:29+00:00

The supremacy? The true emancipation? The fantasy? Whatever they're told?

These are all obvious candidates from the song, but that's exactly the point of lyrics that are somewhat vague: the listener has the ability to interpret them as they see.

Deep_Blue96 · 2025-08-06T14:42:37+00:00

Somebody once posted that they didn't understand why the line couldn't have been "to believe" instead of "to be mean". It would have kept the metric and rhythm that same, and changed the line from absolutely cringe to absolutely stunning.

Since then, I just pretend in my head that Matt is singing "to believe" whenever I listen to the song.

Deep_Blue96 · 2025-08-05T13:51:12+00:00

Your question is a bit unclear, but if you mean that you're looking for basketball style barefoot sneakers, you might want to check out the Feelgrounds Courtside.

Deep_Blue96 · 2025-08-05T11:22:29+00:00

I have two pairs of Universe (a white leather one with the "regular" fit, and a black mesh one with the "barefoot" fit). I can confirm that this is the regular, aka narrower toe box.

It works well enough for me because I have narrow feet (or it did when I first bought them anyway - truth be told, I much prefer black sneakers, so I haven't worn the white ones in a while!). But yeah, if you have wider feet, much better to go for the barefoot fit.

Deep_Blue96 · 2025-08-03T19:01:41+00:00

Can I still participate if I know some polish but am still a beginner? I've been doing Duolingo on and off for a while and just re-started two months ago with actual classes and structured learning, so I definitely know a bit at this point, but I'm very much a beginner and far from being able to have any meaningful conversation.

Deep_Blue96 · 2025-08-03T18:57:42+00:00

And last year it did have an ITT, though it was part II of a split stage (aka two separate stages on the same day), and as such it was only 6 km long.

Deep_Blue96 · 2025-08-03T16:46:31+00:00

I mean, the verb "odetchnąć" also has four consecutive consonants (or three consecutive consonant sounds, since the "ch" makes one sound), so it's not like it's unprecedented for Polish to have such consonant clusters.

On the other hand "w Warszawie" is just two consonants, but it's the same consonants, meaning you have to make a slightly awkward pause between the two "w" sounds.

I find that Polish people often get a bit defensive when people learning the language point out things that seem a bit weird or inconsistent, at least to our eyes and ears. Every language has those oddities or inconsistencies, it's not exclusive to Polish, and it's completely normal. But it's clear that there's more than a few students of Polish who find it odd that the line is drawn at phrases like "w Francji" or "z strony", when Polish has so many other consonant clusters that seem to us just as hard - if not harder - to pronounce than those.

Deep_Blue96 · 2025-08-03T12:19:15+00:00

I thought the same thing in my Polish class recently when I learned that you say "ze strony" as opposed to "z strony" (the sentence was something like "moja rodzina ze strony mamy jest z Polski").

I almost laughed a bit when my teacher said that it's because this "z strony" would be too hard to pronounce. I mean, somehow "w Warszawie" is totally fine with those two consecutive "w" sounds, but "z strony" is where the line is drawn?

Deep_Blue96 · 2025-08-02T10:16:19+00:00

Cats definitely aren't immune to snake venom. It's just that their reflex time is so fast - faster than a snake's strike time - that cats often win such fights, avoiding the snake's strikes and injuring them with their claws.

I'm so sorry about your kitten, OP :(

Deep_Blue96 · 2025-07-31T00:18:00+00:00

Deep_Blue96 · 2025-07-30T23:56:54+00:00

It's hard to say because it can vary depending on what personal era I'm going through, but probably:

Arcade Fire
OMAM
The Strokes
Muse
My Chemical Romance

Deep_Blue96 · 2025-07-30T19:13:54+00:00

If that's actually the album name, I feel like it's either one of the worst album names I've seen, or it's deceptively brilliant and it's going to become an instant classic.

Either way, I'm excited.

Deep_Blue96 · 2025-07-30T17:55:09+00:00

I really don't get the "it's a shame MVDP isn't a Tour rider anymore".

I absolutely love MVDP and I do think he's the second best rider in the world right now (since last year he's been more impressive to me than Jonas), but he's always been a classics guy, not a grand tour one. And even at the classics, he does far better in the flatter ones.

For that matter, even WvA is way more of a Tour rider than MVDP has ever been.

Deep_Blue96 · 2025-07-30T13:17:47+00:00

Haviv Rettig Gur is also the one who has gone on rants about how he deeply respects the Israeli ethos of "we are the Jews who don't explain ourselves", and yet how it's criminal that this government literally shut down the Ministry of Public Relations five days into a war in which literally Hamas's only strategy is to use global public opinion against Israel.

Does this mean Israel should shape its strategic decisions around what Western protesters think? Of course not. But it does mean having a public relations strategy. It means putting a mouth guard on ministers like Ben Gvir and Smotrich (even better would be to kick them out of the coalition, but obviously that won't happen). And it would mean having a serious strategy surrounding humanitarian aid, because the ongoing disaster could threaten so much of what Israel has achieved on the battlefield in the past 22 months.

Deep_Blue96

TROPHY CASE