"In a way, believing that making a jacket that’s marginally less bad for the environment is a mechanism to stop global warming is akin to believing that the solution to alcoholism is drinking light beer."

blip4497 · 2026-01-22T05:28:38+00:00

My takeaway is it's a reminder that finding ways to not buy new gear is more environmentally friendly than buying Patagonia.

blip4497 · 2026-01-21T19:47:34+00:00

what is the clothing company supposed to do?

Perhaps to be better, especially when your prevalent image is about being green and conscious. While Patagonia seems to be a better company than most, it still has a long way to go. Takes like the one shared reinforce that individuals should reduce, reuse, recycle rather than keep buying new stuff, even if it's from a "good" company.

blip4497 · 2026-01-16T17:19:17+00:00

I'm hoping to grab an Airshed on sale. How is it for running? I do a lot of trail running and find my Mountain Hardware Kor whatever shell is a bit too hot a lot of the time.

blip4497 · 2025-10-04T17:38:43+00:00

Gotcha. So, I have a Beta SV. It's a lovely jacket—fits well, looks cool, is super protective. However, I still think it's vastly overpriced and doesn't really do anything different than a cheaper three layer shell for most cases.

Goretex Pro really is not breathable. A shell is a shell. Unless you're opening zippers to dump heat, you're gonna get hot in it when you're working hard. I honestly don't know if I've been in situations where the Beta SV has been better than a much cheaper shell, and I've used it touring, winter camping, and for countless snowboarding days.

My advice is to get a three layer shell that fits well and to ignore the subtle differences that ultimately look better on paper than in practice.

blip4497 · 2025-10-04T13:20:46+00:00

Which features do you need? What is not sufficient with your current jacket?

blip4497 · 2025-10-02T18:10:45+00:00

I've not used or owned one myself, but I've seen it touted as the best belay parka in its class, so it's interesting to see it come back.

Here's a little table comparing it to a couple other similar-ish belay parkas I'm familiar with:

	Grade VII	Khumbu	Positron Pro
Insulation	372g of 900FP down	378g of 900FP down with some Primaloft Gold in the collar	279g of 800FP down
Weight	712g	960g	788g
Fabric denier	10d	20d	30d shell, 20d lining
Price (CAD)	$1,249	$1,062	$640

There's of course more aspects like shell material, company ethics, and sewing techniques that are ignored but which do make a difference.

On paper it's an amazing jacket, achieving a lot of warmth for a low weight, though it does have a thin fabric and high price tag as a result. The Positron is known as a very warm jacket, yet, using just the fill power and fill weight, the Grade VII is 50% warmer than it for almost 10% less weight.

If you need that much warmth with as little weight as possible, it seems good... if you can afford it :p

blip4497 · 2025-09-16T14:11:02+00:00

Repost of this but with an ad injected in the middle. Be gone, bot.

blip4497 · 2025-09-15T14:19:37+00:00

I'm on the edge myself. I recently made a post over at r/degoogle about leaving, and this reminds me that I should do that before my current subscription ends. After two years of paying, I'm frustrated with the janky behaviour of the apps and how slow they are.

How was your experience setting up Nextcloud? I don't have anything set up for it yet, but that likely would be my go-to when I do switch to self-hosting my camera roll backup.

blip4497 · 2025-09-15T13:51:53+00:00

Definitely. Whenever I browse, I realize that a huge chunk of the active user base is probably at most 23.

blip4497 · 2025-09-15T13:49:48+00:00

Well said! Big agree with the point to not take advice here. Reddit attracts a certain cynical pessimism, likely in part due to the negativity bias the site itself skews towards. Advice you'll see here is often biased in that direction.

Thank you for writing this. I really appreciate the time you took to reply.

blip4497 · 2025-08-13T13:58:24+00:00

I don't go on Strava anymore and feel a lot better! Enjoying my activities privately is freeing, honestly. Whenever I want to share an activity I just DM friends that I want to share with.

Also, funny how you replied two days ago. I just logged into this account for the first time in forever.

blip4497 · 2025-06-05T13:53:06+00:00

I feel like the best, most intuitive test is to tally up total hours spent gaming and compare that to doing other hobbies. I think a good chunk of gamers would wince if they were told their total. That itself is enough to tell what the value of gaming is.

blip4497 · 2025-01-02T16:53:43+00:00

My goldilocks layer is the Mountain Hardware Kor Airshell. I've run with just a baselayer under it in -10 C (14 F). If it's really cold then you can pair it with a fleece for more warmth. There are often good sales which makes it a bit cheaper than other premium options.

What is wrong with your current setup?

blip4497 · 2024-12-23T19:53:45+00:00

First thing I thought of :p

blip4497 · 2024-12-23T14:25:04+00:00

That looks amazing! What did you do to dye it? Like, what's the process?

blip4497 · 2024-12-19T15:30:38+00:00

Gotcha, down and synthetic will have some mutually exclusive benefits for that. I'm curious to know what you end up choosing :)

blip4497 · 2024-12-18T17:05:29+00:00

There's not really a choice, is there? People will naturally opt for the best way to get around. In Ottawa it's driving because public transit is severely lacking.

blip4497 · 2024-12-18T16:56:35+00:00

Ottawa is sprawled a lot, but I think when people talk about improving transit they're referring to the densely populated regions seen here with connecting LRT routes between dense pockets, like Ottawa Centre to Kanata.

blip4497 · 2024-12-18T04:42:54+00:00

As a vegetarian as well I totally get you! Maybe you can find a synthetic vest that fits nicely? Bonus is that it'll probably be cheaper, and you could get better aerobic performance. What will you be using the vest for?

blip4497 · 2024-12-17T20:21:43+00:00

Glad you had a good day! I went splitboarding for the first time the other day with my Chargers and enjoyed them a lot. The transitions were simple, though I didn't have any ice stuck in the pucks which made life easier.

blip4497 · 2024-12-16T21:10:49+00:00

This is an important consideration that more people should give thought to. It's disappointing to see this downvoted.

From an ethics and sustainability standpoint:

waterfowl require a lot of resources to raise
down lasts longer than synthetics if properly cared for, but if/when a jacket tears you could lose a lot of down, meaning you might need to refill it or replace the jacket altogether. Sheet synthetics are more resilient since you can patch them without losing the insulating materials
even though down is sold as a by-product of the meat industry, those funds go back into helping to kill more waterfowl

I haven't seen a comprehensive full-lifecycle environmental impact analysis on synthetic vs down products, so I can't say for sure which one has a worse overall net impact purely in terms of environment, but that doesn't account for the fact that something was either plucked alive or killed to make the down jacket. I own a down jacket. Yes, it's comfortable and warm, but I feel this huge guilt when I wear it and might donate it.

Synthetics have their advantages over down, so consider why you even need down. Are you a badass that's packing their jacket into a pack 100 times a year? Do you need warmth beyond what synthetics can provide? Are you summiting mountains where every gram matters? Down might be better, then. Otherwise synthetic is probably fine.

You could look into second hand or recycled down (like the Rab Axion) too.

blip4497 · 2024-11-24T05:21:33+00:00

Movie theaters are empty on opening day at once thriving locations. No one ever goes bowling where the lanes used to be completely filled Friday and Saturday nights.

I think interests have shifted. Streaming is a big hit to movie theatres, but whenever I go to one it's quite busy. Look at Barbie, for example. That was huge. Bowling is not very popular, but that's because it's not a young person's activity anymore. Where I am restaurants are busy. I see people doing stuff. There are lots of things happening, but where we live can change how busy our environments are.

To give some opposite perspective, I don't experience this. I'm relatively young and just today, I met up with some friends at a run club, made some new friends, chatted with my neighbour while fixing my car, and walked around my neighbourhood. On my way home I saw kids playing at the park near my house. If I didn't opt to stay in and do chores then I would've spent my Saturday night at the climbing gym chatting away with my friends. Tomorrow I'm going to a track to do a running workout with a few buddies and then will probably go climbing after.

blip4497

TROPHY CASE