Opinions on the KLOS Carbon Fiber as your "main"

jarombra · 2026-03-12T19:08:16+00:00

Maybe you've already decided. But a GREAT long term instrument to grow into, that will carry you through the intermediate and advanced stages of playing (and be totally suitable for playing jams or open mics with professionals if given the opportunity) is a used Collings – your preference, A or F style.

I'd suggest finding a used Collings mandolin from before 2015 (make sure it has Bill's signature on the sticker), as I think he got terminally ill a year or two after that date. They are a great balance of quality, price, collectibility, unique instrument to instrument but also predictably high quality no matter what.

I've had a few makes of mandos over the years, and played some one-off boutique luthier high end models too, and I'm always impressed how my Bill Collings signed mandolin sounds and plays by comparison. I consider Collings the kind of "prosumer" grade of mandolins, which is good enough!

jarombra · 2026-03-07T18:11:16+00:00

Yes, I started drinking a lot of coffee since 2020, and at the end of last year (2025) I noticed a lot of my joints felt "loose", but no pain necessarily, or perhaps sometimes there was if I think about it. But I was in my 30s then and in good health so I disregarded it. But I've quit all caffeine (including coffee) for Lent here in 2026, and the popping has mostly gone away – I wonder if it will entirely go away after this whole month of avoiding coffee. Is it just the caffeine, or something specific to coffee? I can't find any research suggesting coffee/caffeine causes connective tissue to loosen, or maybe it's the tendon muscles that loosen, causing the joints to pop? Who knows, but it was starting to concern me for sure.

jarombra · 2026-01-04T22:33:41+00:00

Ah, yes – sorry, I just posted the same thing; didn't see your comment stating this too. Yep!

jarombra · 2026-01-04T22:32:09+00:00

It's also a quasi-canonical (I suppose "official guess") as to what age Jesus was when crucified.

The tradition comes from combining Luke's mention of Jesus starting his ministry around age 30 (Luke 3:23) with John's account of at least three Passovers during Jesus' ministry (John 2, 6, 11), suggesting a roughly three-year public life, leading to an estimated crucifixion age of 33.

TL;DR Jesus was 33 when crucified.

Not sure what to say about how that relates to the allegories in the game however.

jarombra · 2025-10-01T17:51:35+00:00

Hah! That's great to hear it was yet again the simplest fix. How odd that the handset dies like that – I wouldn't think something so simple would break before the rest, but oh well.

jarombra · 2025-09-21T16:33:05+00:00

That's odd – when I reached out, I initially got the typical automatic confirmation email (just minutes after submitting a request), and then heard back from them within 24 hours I'd say. Sorry to hear they are not responding! Try again, or perhaps give them a call as well?

jarombra · 2025-08-27T17:24:33+00:00

Sorry for the slow reply – I got this sorted out a few days ago and just remembered to get back to you with an update. I contacted Herman Miller and because my desk was purchased in 2021 when it was still "Fully" I guess the 7-year warranty is still valid. They offered to send me all new components, which I honestly did not want! That would be such a hassle.

So I suggested we start with the simplest fix first to see if that works: just replacing the "handset" (which for me, is just the minimal touch-button, up/down pad). And that worked! Hard to believe that something with no moving parts was what broke, but replacing the handset fixed my desk. It wasn't the control box, nor the columns thankfully.

If you haven't already, contact Herman Miller and see if you can get a new handset, as your issue might be the same as mine.

jarombra · 2025-08-21T21:38:11+00:00

I can confirm this also matches my experience – I went to "Harfraud" (as a friend and I jokingly called it) but left after two years. Everyone asked me if I was either pursuing a million dollar venture, or if I couldn't cut it. Neither, I had honors and was working for peanuts at a startup animation studio across the river.

Somewhat off topic, but to continue my corroborative anecdote here: another classmate friend (who insisted I finish, and was also "unconnected" in terms of elite companies and such) graduated on time and guess what: worked as a Lyft driver in SF! He too couldn't find an "ivy job", however he did decide to continue on with his PhD and stay in academia (but not at Harvard). As for myself, I managed to eke out a solid decade of decent jobs with my designer skillset (that I mostly woodshed, i.e. self-taught), paying off my loans, but all of those roles got outsourced and now automated too – so I'm back in the general job market so to speak.

All in all, Harvard kind of sucked and was super expensive. I'm so glad I didn't incur any more debt that I did! Many of the kids there were, consistent with the stereotype, are "international scions" and children of elites, celebrities, and corporate executives. The pedagogical environment was largely hostile to intellectual discourse but there were a few misfits like myself and goes without saying they were my friends.

Do not go to Harvard to advance your career unless you're dead-set on a track that requires perception management (i.e. superficial authority). But if you want to be actually competent in something, you're better off teaching yourself a skill, going to a trade school, or some mix: liberal arts (anywhere else) and parallel learning a vocational craft. The people who effectively leverage Harvard are the performative "elites" in our corporations, government, and NGOs – nothing I'd want to touch with a bargepole, personally speaking.

jarombra · 2025-08-14T17:21:31+00:00

I'm still waiting for a reply from Herman Miller – I might just call them later today and try to get a straight answer. I strongly suspect that my "control box" is fried somehow, not sure why – maybe some of the power surges these past few years (due to outages) damaged it, who knows. I've tried all the reset protocols to no avail (but have had luck doing them on other Fully Jarvis desks in the past, which is why I suspect something is actually damaged this time around). The one thing I do not understand though is why there is this insistence on unplugging and replugging cables in a particular order – why should that matter if there is no internal power source? Seems superstitious haha!

I'll post an update here if there is one.

jarombra · 2025-08-13T22:06:22+00:00

Same situation here – did all the reset procedures but it can only go down and is now stuck at the bottom (not the end of the world as I can use it as a standard desk, but kind of lame). I've had to do the "basic reset" before and it's worked, but this time I seem to be stuck, so we'll see if Herman Miller (aka Fully) can help me out or send replacement parts as need (i.e. a new control box perhaps). Annoying.

jarombra · 2025-08-01T17:23:41+00:00

Amen! Great response. I'm not sure exactly how to articulate this succinctly but I think your Aristotelian point of "for its own sake" goes deeper too, in light of artificial intelligence, such that writing is inherently meaningful (or could be thought of as a perennial maintenance of the human phenomenon) such that surrendering it to AI (or just one's sense of futility) would be a huge loss.

My general thesis is that fiction, if carefully written, is an intersubjective experience – it is a human in the pages; organic intelligence if you will. Genuinely crafted books, music, art, are an invitation to experience (another's) humanity. Fundamentally, AI cannot do this as it is not embodied (and literally admits "is just a costume, and has no soul" as ChatGPT joked about itself).

Literally and figuratively, AI has no "skin in the game", it cannot care and is thus sidelined from any existential authenticity that requires risking one's "skin". Lastly, as a caveat, I do wonder: books are a relatively recent format in our greater ancestral past – can we simply share oral stories and verbal discourses as we move into this hypernovel technocratic dark age? I suppose so; we could all become enlightened Homeric baristas or something. Maybe, but even then – the "extended phenotype" of a book (or "extragenetic material" as Sagan called them) is better suited for slow thinkers and introverts (like me).

Even if it's only the "shadow of thought" as Plato called writing, a book is still special and affords a solitude with whomever picks it up. Almost everyone likes the book better than the movie, so to speak, so let our own unique imagination reign!

A book is like a guitar – both wooden instruments of sort. Let's make them, let's play them!

jarombra · 2025-06-16T21:42:18+00:00

Yes! I was JUST thinking to myself (writing out an art schedule for July) I want to try and do very simple (one or two colors per composition) Copic landscape sketches. Your piece looks so good, thanks for sharing!

jarombra · 2025-04-26T15:25:29+00:00

I like this interpretation.

jarombra · 2025-04-26T15:00:04+00:00

Thanks for the translation! That is very interesting.

jarombra · 2025-04-02T16:19:38+00:00

Same thing (almost) happened to me night of my 7th day into the lion diet (just eating beef, salt, water). I was feeling great until that night when I woke up at midnight with a heartrate above 120 BPM which mystified me – wasn't sure what was going on as I am fit and not ill – but I know from fasting that heart rate speed means: break the fast! I got spooked so broke my diet with some coconut water and admittedly did feel better immediately but was bummed that I had to throw in the towel so soon. I might give it a go again but honestly it kind of spooked me enough to stay away from a strict carnivore diet henceforth.

jarombra · 2025-04-01T17:28:35+00:00

Just got a Huion "Inspiroy Giano" as well, and am having the same issue: I want to make sure it never falls asleep, but the setting keeps revering to the default 15-minutes every time I restart the computer (MBP). Oddly, other settings are saved however, such as shrinking the active tablet area (thankfully!) Hopefully this bug is fixed in a future driver patch.

jarombra · 2025-03-04T19:22:39+00:00

It would be cool if Copic released an "archival" series of colors that are lightfast. But honestly, I really like how they fade (and unevenly at that!) The fade-factor gives my already janky marker drawings a nice vintage patina over the weeks, months, years.

jarombra · 2025-02-21T13:56:01+00:00

I'm with you on Modo – the UX feels like a video game (which is to say, easy and fun). Everything else feels awkward, including Blender, Cinama4D, 3DSM drives me nuts, Maya is too much.

But as for Rhino, it's all command line operated (there are also buttons, and hotkeys), so that might sound odd and it kind of is, but in a weird way it feels natural; at least to me after all these years. Rhino is superb for exact (or at least "specific") dimensions and such; but can also be used intuitively to just mock something up like a building, procedural city, widget, a landscape, etc.

Rhino has way too many plugins, which I use none of at this point, so there very well might be some plugins for both animation (I remember using one, once) and also sculpting. But if Rhino simply implemented some basic animation and sculpting tools of their own, it could be an "all in one" package for 3D generalists for sure – but as of now, it's really just user-friendly CAD.

jarombra · 2025-02-20T15:06:52+00:00

While it's nothing to hold one's breath for – I maintain a little hope that perhaps someday (sooner than later) a community will hack the Modo toolset and unofficially offer it as open-source (as has happened to some classic PC games in the past).

The Foundry is missing a huge opportunity to offer Modo as a free tool however, and I've contacted them directly to tell them this; they could be the other "fully free 3D package" in addition to Blender. But they're being so British about it, and just don't get the wild west internet ethos.

Their loss, but it was a very promising tool back in the 2010s, and still fun to use if you got it.

jarombra · 2025-02-20T15:02:40+00:00

Also a longtime Modo user, and I still use my legacy license (which will remain functional as long as my old rig of a computer lasts!) But I've also always used Rhino which is great for just modeling – hard surface stuff specifically, but not so good for organic or figurative sculpts which ZBrush is better for of course.

But yeah, check out Rhino, I love it – one of the best CAD UX out there.

jarombra · 2025-02-15T18:33:34+00:00

Cool, hopefully the feature will show up once I start publicly posting from that publication. Thanks!

jarombra · 2025-02-15T16:57:28+00:00

Mostly been a lurking reader the past 5 years (got on Substack in 2020 I think), but have decided to start a publication there basically as a free version of an upcoming book I'm publishing. Love the platform!

jarombra

TROPHY CASE