Look at this bird

And how it squawks at you

He'll eat your mangoes, too

And he is all...

Green herons are indeed green, or at least appear so via some kind of iridescence when they're hit by sunlight. You don't typically think of finding herons in a tree, but in a tree is precisely where these two were. I believe this is a male and female pair but I don't know enough to be sure.

They have quite an extensible neck, but when they're just sitting around and not pecking at anything they usually keep it retracted like this. It makes them look like any other songbird until you notice the long legs and the bodaciousness of that beak.

Bonus picture of this one having a floof:

Not as in its description. "Superb starling" is literally what it's called. Lamprotornis superbus. I find them significantly more superb than the common European starling, anyway.

These are endemic to Eastern Africa which is obviously not where I spotted this one. Naturally, it was in a zoo.

Here's a bonus picture of it going scritch.

I have no idea if this was a male or a female since they are not sexually dimorphic and this one was, for the first time in recorded history, not making any noises.

Edit: I notice these are the very birds pictured in the "birds make friends, too" article posted here recently. How serendipitous.

It's gosling season. This family has been hanging around my work for the last several days, presumably overnighting under one of the shrubs or maybe in the drainage pond at the bottom of the property which has been quite full as of late. Sometimes they even come peck at the door.

If they like, I have a couple of clients I wouldn't mind if they came over and hissed at. But so far no such luck.

All aboard! This train bound for another episode of Sino-silliness, Chinese chicanery, Oriental oddity, and points Eastward.

Insomuch as it has a name, this is the "Originality Pendulum," third of three by our friends from YESISOK. But that, of course, is only the first tidbit of its name, which makes it sound like it ought to be a Lancrastian resident. As usual its full name is longer and rather less melodious: It's the "Originality Pendulum Folding Knife Mini Sharp Stainless Steel Fruit Knife Carry Key Chain Pendant Portable Open Express Knife." If you expect to actually use this for fruit, I'll just say there is a definite upperbound limit of fruit to which it'll be applicable.

Rarely can we judge a book so readily from its cover. The Originality Pendulum is a breath of fresh air in that respect, since it's easy to see precisely what it has to offer.

Originality is right. Yes, this is a small slip joint folder that's long on the joint but a bit short on the slip. This is because it has what can only be described as a real live and functional locomotive drive arm on it. The arm is spring loaded and is what serves as a detent to keep the blade positively, albeit gently, held in its open or closed positions. For this its maker consistently refers to it by using the word "pendulum." I don't think that quite means what they think it means. I would have said "piston," personally, but what do I know? We'll roll with it anyway.

That's because this is pretty rad, it must be said. I'm just chuffed to bits over it.

The Originality Pendulum is definitely angling for the keychain knife or possibly urban micro-EDC category. It's quite small, but not unusably so: 4-3/16" long when open with a pseudo-sheepsfoot 1-1/2" blade. It's 2-11/16" long when closed and just 0.280" thick across the flat of its handles. The piston mechanism actually sits proud of the handle slightly and bulks the whole thing out to about 0.322". The blade has a section of sharpened edge just a hair under 1-5/16" with a genuine choil behind it, so that all of the short length is at least usable. Of course, exactly what that blade is made out of is a bit of a mystery, per usual. The specifications claim it's 7cr which is certainly within the realm of plausibility but it's likely we'll never know for sure. Still, for a novelty miniature knife that's likely to be used only for non-demanding tasks, that's probably fine.

It's 42 grams precisely or 1.48 ounces, being made entirely of steel of one description or another, except for the piston which is prominently made of brass. So it's small and arguably light enough that you genuinely could dangle it alongside your keys. Or, perhaps, from your pocketwatch chain. Here it is with a quarter for scale.

There's no thumb stud or anything but there is what amounts to a fingernail nick on the form of a triangular hole through the spine of the blade. You might think this is for use as a thumb hole like a Spyderco knife, but not much of it is left exposed sticking out of the handle and it's really too small to access with your thumb. A fingernail really is the best way to get at it. There are some ridges around the spine and a small heel on the back of the blade, though, so you can just barely and with a fair bit of practice open this as if it were a rear flipper. It's not easy, though, because the piston is indeed spring loaded and it will want to snap the blade back shut if you don't manage to rotate it far enough. Fair dues, though, once you get it tipped past the halfway point it'll snap the blade open for you instead.

If you're used to a traditional small slip joint folder the Originality Pendulum is actually a bit easier and, if you ask me, a lot nicer to use. It's not as tightly sprung, and its spring action is longer and more progressive. It feels like it's working with you rather than against you. It feels more modern and refined, despite basically just being the same thing arrived at via a silly avenue.

There's no clip or anything but there is a hole on the tail you can use for a lanyard or keyring. And this time you actually can use it, without interfering with the function of the knife... The maker (or possibly seller) demonstrates such in this picture, which I've gleefully stolen because it means I don't need to bother to put forth the effort to find a keyring and then take my own. Hey, this must be efficiency. (While we're at it, get a load of those fake keys!)

Surprisingly, the Originality Pendulum's product photos are 100% accurate, which for fly-by-night Chinese cutlery may actually be a first. For instance, no polishing job whatsoever has been done on the taper grind on the blade. It's left with machining ridges on it so pronounced they'll stop your fingernail if you rake it across. But that's exactly as it's depicted in all of its photos, so you can't say you've been misled. Also, that grind may in fact actually be flat. Or if it's not, it's a hollow grind that's so subtle it's impossible to detect as such. The flats, meanwhile, are very shiny. Nearly mirror polished. The net effect is kind of attractive, but if you know what you're looking at it does broadcast "cheap."

What's carefully not depicted is the back side of the knife, probably because it's boring and just flat:

It's got a satin bead blasted finish which doesn't look too bad, though. I would have liked to maybe see a small clip here as well, but given that this retails for $10.27 at the moment -- tariffs and all -- at that price you probably can't have everything. It didn't come with its own keyring, either. Nor a box; it just shows up in a plastic baggie.

Obviously I was drawn to this purely for its mechanism and I was far less concerned about the rest of its qualities. It's a bonus, then, that this thing manages not to be complete crap in the bargain.

The Originality Pendulum is definitely built on a budget, but it's still surprisingly competently put together. Mine, for instance, barely had any lash in the pivot.

The cost saving features include making all three of its assembly screws identical: The two at the tail and the one through the pivot are the same. The pivot is spaced out with some small brass washers, which is a damn sight better than what I was expecting, which was nothing. That explains the solidity of the blade on its pivot, and its lack of rubbing against the handle plates.

Here's the piston, which we all know is what we really came here to see. It's two pieces, a hollow tube that comprises the rear half and a rod that goes to the front. There's a tiny coil spring inside which provides the, well, springiness. This is what keeps the blade held in either of its two positions. There is also a fantastically tiny spacer that goes between the end of the piston arm (which is threaded!) and the blade, keeping the former from rubbing against the latter. If you ever one of these apart, do not drop that part on the carpet lest you never see it again.

The end of the piston attaches to this screw, which is sunk into a machined pocket on the back face of the blade. The screw spins freely in its hole here and machining this pocket into the blade must have contributed a nontrivial amount to this thing's production cost.

The hardware. None of the screws have anti-rotation flats on them and they are threadlocked from the factory, so you will need a T6 driver in each side to disengage these, should the urge ever strike you. The pin there is the endstop for the blade which lands in the choil when it's closed and the heel of it rests against when it's open.

The edge grind is not exceptionally fine, but mine arrived sharp enough to be serviceable for light package-openeing duty, at least.

It appears that a slight secondary apex has been put on the edge which is presumably what actually manages to make it sharp, or at least as sharp as it is. At the angle the primary edge is ground at, the two sides wouldn't have actually met at the apex.

The tip is not especially pokey because it's been rounded off slightly in this process, as you can see. I imagine the final sharpening was probably done by hand. (The backdrop here is a random piece of mail I had on my desk, which the microscope reveals to actually be printed on security paper. Hence the rather festive 1990s confetti pattern, there. They say you'll discover a whole new world under a microscope, and it turns out they were right.)

You can see here how different the edge angle is on either side. In all honesty I've seen worse in terms of factory trueness even on much more expensive cutlery, and 7cr isn't exactly a difficult steel to sharpen. Given this knife's short edge length to begin with, fixing this up if it annoys you should easy for anyone equipped with pretty much any stone, and a modicum more care and skill than was possessed by whoever-it-was at the factory. I don't think either of those will be an especially tough bar to clear. So making this little tacker unwisely sharp should be the work a mere moment.

The Inevitable Conclusion

There's just something about the way the Originality Pendulum works that inherently makes any man or boy grin. It's probably the locomotive-adjacency to its mechanism. It ought to come with its own miniature conductor.

It's steampunkishness is there, for sure, but it's restrained. More subtle. Refined.

Less in your face. It's much more New Atlantis than New Atlanta. A gentleman's (or woman's) knife, then.

If this were sold by The Sharper Image I'll bet it would cost sixty bucks. But it's not, so you can have one for not much more than a single Hamilton. You could absolutely use this in polite company and if you did, the comments you'll receive would probably all be positive.

In case you couldn't tell, I really like the Originality Pendulum. Even despite its cheapness and its stupid name. Every once in a while that happens, with what you thought for sure was going to be a piece of junk worth it only for the memes turning out to be a genuine diamond in the rough.

The problem is, that'll embolden you, tempting you to buy the next one. And then... Well. You know how it usually goes.

Nnneeeeeooow, sploosh.

Cormorants may just be the least graceful water birds in the universe. They also have the distinction of being self-evidently floaty maritime birds whose feathers aren't waterproof, so feel free to roll that one up and smack the next creationist who argues with you online over "intermediate steps" or "irreducible complexity" or whatever the hell.

Pure, unadulterated cool. The cat's pajamas. That je ne sais quoi, distilled.

Style, folks.

Everyone wants it. This knife's got it.

This is the CobraTec Gideon, in its silver and abalone incarnation. Which is, of course, not only absolute swankiest but also the shiniest version. Hey, if you're going to ride into battle against the Midianites you may as well do it while looking fabulous.

CobtraTec is an American knife company based in Texas, but for most of you they're probably not one of the household names. But based on some internet sleuthing, I have a pretty good hunch that they're actually the force behind the Böker balisong knives we like so much. That drew them to my attention initially, but their catalog of fairly samey out-the-front switchblades thoroughly fails to captivate me.

But then, there's this.

The Gideon is a side opener. But you'll note the utter lack of thumb stud, button, switch, toggle, latch, or plunger. It's profile is svelte and nearly completely smooth.

You'll never guess how it opens. Go on, just try.

This is part of CobraTec's "Hidden Release" series. And not even, you'll be surprised to learn, the weirdest of the bunch.

This is its opener.

To set it off you slide the diamond textured bolster to the side. Its spring action is quite firm, and you need sharp eyes to notice the hairline gap between this and the handle which'd clue you in that it is in fact a moving component. It's pretty damn unlikely that anyone would figure out how to open this if you didn't tell them or they didn't already know.

The Gideon is precisely 7-1/2" long when open, with a 3-3/8" long drop pointed blade made of 154CM. CobraTec call the blade "3 inches." To be fair, that's roughly the length of the usable portion of the edge. It's subtly hollow ground with a thin, stiletto-like profile. It's 4-1/8" long closed, and 0.481" thick across its sleek aluminum body not including the clip. It has a pleasing density at 76.4 grams or 2.68 ounces, but thanks again to its aluminum handle it's not especially heavy overall.

All of this makes it uniquely suited to EDC duty for sufficiently stylin' people. With no crossguard, protrusions, or other greebles on its surface it rides superbly in or on your pocket. (What? All of the sudden my CQC 6K is silver again? No, silly, I have two of them.)

It's got a traditional pocket clip with a single position only, tip up carry for right handed people. The clip is not very tightly sprung and since the Gideon's abalone handle insert is completely smooth this means it draws supremely easily. There's just enough retention that it won't fall off of its own accord if it's dangled upside down while clipped to normal-ish fabric (i.e. my shirttails, which I just tested this with) but if you're the sort to be habitually rolling around in the mud upside down while Solid Snaking it in the bush, I think it goes without saying that the Gideon is just maybe not the knife for you.

There is a lanyard hole on the tail of the knife which is left exposed even when the knife is clipped.

There are indeed ambidextrous knives in the world, with thoughtfully symmetrical controls suitable for both righties and lefties.

The Gideon is absolutely not one of them.

Never mind the irreversible clip. The opening mechanism is accessible from one side, and one side only. This one, shown here with its textured bolster. Left handed users will probably find this uniquely difficult to use. CobraTec invite you instead to go whistle. That, or buy one of their myriad of out-the-front models with a spine mounted switch instead.

You've all watched me spend a lot more on pure nonsense, but at a list price of $130 the Gideon is still not exactly cheap. To make up for it, it's packing a deceptively intense amount of precision machine work. It starts with this snake's head embossed in the bolster opposite the one you use to open it.

Come to think of it, CobraTec's logo looks distinctly viperid. I wonder if anyone ought to tell them that, uh, cobras aren't vipers.

You get it again on the blade, along with the Gideon's steel descriptor. There are no other markings.

It's also assembled very, very competently. Every part of it feels incredibly solid. There is no wiggle in the blade, and it doesn't touch either side of the handle despite the minuscule clearances around it in its channel.

It's also got a fully concealed pivot. When CobraTec were constructing this monument to elegance they absolutely weren't fucking around. The Gideon reveals none of its secrets about how it's constructed from the outside. The only visible screws are the three holding on the clip, and a single lone one in the tail immediately behind these.

Undoing this doesn't lead to much, either. The Gideon's pivot must be press fit; the two halves of the handle can be separated minutely with the tail screw out but the pivot remains resolutely locked together regardless of any amount of wiggling, twisting, or trying to slide a spudger up the gap. Beyond this I'm disinclined to fool with it -- It's a side opening automatic which means that the blade is under spring tension all the time, which means even if I did get it apart it'd go "sproing," and then be annoying to reassemble.

CobraTec backs this with a lifetime warranty. But I'll bet you that won't cover breaking it trying to get it apart.

From the outside we can see that the Gideon is actually a lockback mechanism. The sliding bolster is attached to a hook on the backstrap, and this seesaws on a cross pin in the usual way with spring motive provided by a leaf spring underneath. This is separate from the one for the blade itself, which is presumably a torsion spring. Unusually for a lockback, of course, the lock engages in both the open and closed positions so that the thing won't spring open in your pocket. You can't open the blade manually, despite appearances.

The Inevitable Conclusion

This may be sacrilege, but despite its show-off looks and price tag I actually bought my Gideon to be a knife to use -- not just for looking at.

Sure, at $130 it's not cheap in an objective sense. But that's only before you start comparing it with other American made automatics. The Covetousness Tax ensures that switchblades remain expensive these days, but if you ask me you can spend a whole lot more on one than this and get rather less for your money.

The Gideon's got a lot going for it in that respect. Its textured anodized handle does a great job at hiding fingerprints, it's extremely solid, and 154CM is still a quite competent alloy. All in all, this may just be the ultimate gentleman's knife.

And for fuck's sake, it's still $50 cheaper than a Benchmade Bugout. Come on. You can't tell me this isn't at least 300% cooler than a Bugout.

I am not a Spyderco guy, which is an notion I've opined several times before.

This goes a long way towards explaining why I have five of the damn things. But to be fair, one of them is a pen, one of them is a balisong, and one of them is made out of freakin' wood. The fourth one is boring, and we won't talk about it here. Yet.

I will at least say one thing about Spyderco, which is that they're darn consistent. It's got to be a hard day's work over there making all those models that are the same damn knife. Triangular blade, flat grind, big hole instead of a thumb stud. It's like the bagpipe song. Sometimes they play it fast and sometimes they play it slow, and sometimes they play it backwards. But you can't fool me, guys. You can call it whatever you want but it's still always the same song.

It's no wonder, then, that every once in a blue moon one of their designers probably goes a little stir-crazy and gives us something like this.

This knife probably holds the crown for shortest time between my learning about how it worked and there being one on the way to me in the mail. This kind of thing isn't a fetish, I tell you, it's a romantic abnormality.

Anyway, this is the Spyderco JaniSong. Designed by Michael Janich, hence the name, Spyderco's marketing department goes on to describe it as, "a one-of-a-kind folding knife that elevates the spirit of the traditional Filipino balisong to a practical yet dramatic modern cutting tool."

Although it very clearly isn't a balisong knife, you say.

Except it is. But it isn't. Except it kind of is.

The What?

Look, this is going to take some explaining.

The JaniSong takes the idea found in the last two stupid knives we looked at and carries it all the way through to its logical conclusion. This is thus another one of them there balisongs-with-one-pivot arrangements. With the key distinction of, this one's not dollhouse sized and it actually works.

It's much, much larger: About 8-1/4" long, 4-15/16" closed, with a 3-1/4" flat ground S30V blade in a drop pointed profile with, yes, a hole in it.

Here it is with a short list of, if not its peers exactly, at least a couple of knives in its EDC size class. You genuinely could carry this around and use it for stuff.

Its core conceit is that it has an inner handle inside its outer handle, and the blade inside of that. All of this shares one pivot.

And rather than a traditional tail latch, it sports this sliding switch that locks everything in either the open or closed position.

The inner handle/blade carrier thing swings out freely along with the blade itself, the latter of which hits an endstop at the 180 degree mark while the inner handle can swing all the way around to a full 360. Then you can flip the inner handle freely back and forth, ultimately slotting it back into the outer handle but leaving the blade out. It has its own separate 180 degree interface with the blade so grasping it along with the main outer handle keeps the blade solidly deployed. Or if you prefer, you can slide the switch back up and totally lock everything solid.

The jury's still out on just how practical and/or dramatic this may be.

The How

Thus the JaniSong is trapped somewhere in the space between a traditional pocketknife, a gravity knife, and a balisong.

It can be opened via a subset -- but certainly not the entire litany -- of balisong-esque maneuvers.

Partly that's down to being short an entire pivot point, but mostly it's down to the unequal distribution of weight between all of its parts.

With its steel liners and G-10 scales, the JaniSong weighs a not inconsiderable 153.3 grams or 5.41 ounces altogether. But while its inner handle is made of steel plates the same thickness as the outer liners, it's lightened with speed holes and has neither the scales nor the lock attached to it, so it weighs noticeably less than the outer handles. The blade is likely somewhere in between, and that puts the point of balance just about a half of an inch rearward of the pivot screw... when both the blade and the inner handle are fully swung out. The inner handles on their lonesome thus carry considerably less inertia without the blade than with it. Just a smidge too little inertia, in fact, if you ask me. This means an unequal and much more concerted flick of the wrist is needed to bring the inner handle back than it was to send the combo of inner and blade away.

Spyderco claim in their literature than the JaniSong is "safer" than a traditional balisong because the only handle you can grasp is the safe handle. That's so, but consider that a fair few of the more advanced opening tricks require starting with the bite handle, in particular the various finger rolls e.g. the Y2K, precisely because doing the inverse would put the edge in contact with your fingers. So maybe don't try to pull any of those with the JaniSong unless you're either very brave or your knife is very dull.

The ol' reliable double windmill works well enough, though.

The JaniSong has two more wrinkles related to its action. The first is that where and how hard you grab its main outer handle has a slight but noticeable impact on how free the pivot action is. And the second is that it exhibits a distinctive and pronounced bounce off of its endstops, which you can see in this slow-mo:

The latter is only something to get used to, but the former requires constant care and attention lest you set yourself up for looking like a bit of a berk.

The Details

Considering that the JaniSong has an MSRP of $314 and retails for the thick end of $235, it goes without saying that Spyderco put an awful lot into it. And let's face facts, even with the best will in the world nobody is going to be picking this up from a hang card at their local sporting goods store.

It's a sandwich consisting of no less than seven layers, including all four liners, the blade, and both G-10 scales. It's very square with no protrusions to snag, but it's still a chunky number at 0.605" across its scales and 0.762" thick including the clip. That's over three quarters of an inch, which is a lot.

The blade is ostensibly a drop point but has a pronounced belly, with a distinct out-and-back recurve to it. It's nearly symmetrical, so you can decide whether not this is enough to count as a leaf point or a spear point.

The clip is indeed a deep carry design, and it's picked out with the Spyderco logo laser etched into it. In typical Spyderco fashion it is reversible and repositionable with a total of four locations for both tip up and tip down carry, or in this case whatever you prefer to actually be able to bust this thing out. You'd better remember how you set up the clip and which side is which afterwards, because otherwise the JaniSong has absolutely no tactile indication whatsoever as to which side the blade comes out of, and from the outside it appears 100% symmetrical.

You'd think this jimping would help you identify which side is which, but it doesn't. That'd be too easy, you see. It's exactly the same on both sides.

One side of this particular mushroom bears the Spyderco logo again and steel descriptor.

The other has the Michael Janich designer's mark rune, and manufacturing origin listed as Taichung, Taiwan. Neither side indicates which makes you larger or smaller.

I don't have a little .gif of me wiggling the blade around on this like the last two, because the blade doesn't wiggle. Some how, some way, Spyderco has managed to make this rock solid. It doesn't rattle either around its axis or laterally, which I guess is what you get for $235 rather than $3.

The Parts

Needless to say, I absolutely had to see how this thing works on the inside. But that said I really don't recommend you try to take your JaniSong part unless you absolutely have to. Content yourselves with these pictures, secure in the knowledge that I am a highly trained moron; this knife is designed by nerds, for nerds, and is absolutely stuffed full of pitfalls and booby traps vis-a-vis tiny easily lost parts that absolutely will fall out and disappear the moment you crack the sucker open.

For instance:

Here's what's underneath one of the scales. It seems simple enough, with the lock bar extending down the sides and its little toggle switch that rests on top.

...Which is detented with a tiny ball bearing that is just in there loose, completely unrestrained in any way.

Ripe to just fall out, and it absolutely will unless you're ready for it. Preferably with a small but powerful magnet. There's also a minuscule spring inside each of the lock switches which is very nearly but not quite captive, and prone to falling out precisely at the most inopportune moment.

Each half of the lock bar also includes a drop-fit guide pin which can leap out and roll away.

Here you can see that it bears phosphor bronze pivot washers. I would have liked to see ball bearings which surely would have cured the inconsistent pivot feel problem but also probably made it even thicker. Oh well. Also in evidence is the semicircular track for the end stop pin which is pressed into the blade. There's one each on the inner handle and outer liner plates and, yes, it is absolutely possible to install the former backwards because of course it is. Greasy fingerprint and stray hair optional -- I was too lazy to edit these out.

And I will be stuffed if I'm taking this whole damn thing apart again just to retake that one photo.

Because the JaniSong otherwise breaks down into a frankly absurd number of components, as befits and justifies its status as an enthusiast's knife. This includes a bevy of no less than six diabolo spacers, four of them threaded and two of them not; a scad of screws, 12 in all; two springs, two ball bearings, two guide pins, all easily lost; four phosphor bronze washers and their attendant pivots; four plates, comprising both the inner and outer layers; one blade, two scales. And the lock bar. And a partridge. And a pear tree.

And reassembling it is quite tricky.

Here are two thirds of the spacers, as they ride in the tail of the inner handle. The bite you see taken out of it is for the lock, which slides to the rear when disengaged:

And slides forward into that notch when engaged, holding everything in place:

You can also click it into its locked position while the inner handle is swung out in between someplace, which accomplishes nothing but can allow it to bash into the lock's barrel spacer, probably dinging both it and the edges of the inner handle plates depending how much gusto with which you go about it, and detracting from your collector's value in the process. So maybe resist the urge to do that.

Here's most of the hardware. Note that the main pivot screw has an anti-rotation flat, and be mindful of this before you start reefing on either screw head. This lineup is also short two screws from the scales, because I forgot I left them in their holes which you can see in the main disassembly photo above, and didn't realize it until it was too late. Look, I'm just chuffed that I was able to get all of this lined up without anything rolling away, all right?

The Why

That's the big question, isn't it?

Well, why not? We climb the mountain because it's there. We collect the weird knives because they're weird. I think that's really the JaniSong's real purpose for being, despite any post-hoc mumbling Spyderco may do about making a balisong design that's "safer," or whatever. Because not only is that the definition of a fool's errand, but we wouldn't have it any other way, would we?

So it's weird. And I know that's what you all paid your tickets to see. So there you go. Nobody can say you didn't get your money's worth.

You know, I like to think of what I do here as a public service sometimes. I am honored to make it my duty to find these inevitable types of blogspam EDC gadgets and be the one to belly up to that checkout page and say, yes, I will take one for the team and put down my $7.46 to determine once and for all of said item is utter crap. Because someone has to. For science. For the betterment of mankind.

Here is the "D2 Blade Titanium Alloy MINI" from -- which I did not twig to at the time -- our good friends YESISOK. Its full moniker is the "D2 Blade Titanium Alloy MINI Gear Folding Knife Multifunctional Outdoor EDC Self-defens Tool Outdoor Portable Utility Keychain." (The E fell off, presumably in some manner of industrial accident. Perhaps similar to last time. An alternative theory also presents itself.)

It's another one of those twin handle/single pivot jobs. Except this one's got fuckin' magnets.

This knife makes a fabulous fidget toy because of its retention mechanism, which is solely comprised of four small neodymium button magnets flush mounted in the tips of the handles. That's basically it's entire deal. The magnets are oriented so that the handles elegantly snick into their open and closed positions with basically zero effort, and no other mechanical consideration required. Which is just as well, really, because as we determined last time such mechanical bits are at this price point very likely to go slightly wrong.

Rather like unto a balisong knife and quite a bit unlike most other pocketknives (those not appearing in this column, anyway) the D2 Mini's two handle halves swing in opposite directions meeting up with each other again at the 180 degree mark, leaving the blade exposed. And since the retention is magnetic you can even with a bit of practice do this with one hand. If you just manage to shove the handles vaguely near enough to either of their home positions the magnets take over and snap them home for you.

You can also of course just fidget with it incessantly by sliding the magnets across each other, without actually deploying the blade. It's even unlikely anyone watching would notice that the thing is even a knife, unless you were dumb enough fully deploy it in their presence. Rather, it's not unreasonable to assume that it's akin to one of those magnetic sliding playing card fidget thingies, which is not too far off the mark in any case.

But rather than a playing card motif, the D2 Mini is very minimalist chic, just a rectangular lozenge with twin faceted handle plates and otherwise eschewing any other decoration. It still excels for this kind of use case since it can be actuated reasonably quietly (and with practice, can be done in near silence), doesn't require any open space around it so it can be manipulated in a hoodie pocket or under your desk where nobody can see, and if you ask me it provides a very satisfactory tactile experience.

Somewhat disappointingly the spec chart for this one is a little bit less amusing than last time...

...But it's probably close to accurate. The handle slabs claim to be made out of titanium and it's possible that they genuinely are. A magnet does not stick to them, and they're once again in that category of too dense to be aluminum and too light to be zinc. The blade might even genuinely be D2 as well. Damned if I can tell, but for the price it's unlikely to matter. If you're expecting an exhaustive edge retention testing regimen on this, well, prepare to walk away disappointed.

There are really only two problems with this, if you even want to call the first one a problem. Like its predecessor, they don't have "MINI" in the name all in caps for nothing. This is quite small: Just 2-13/32" long when closed and 3-3/8" long open, with a titchy little 1-7/16" long drop pointed blade. The blade is 0.98" thick, so far from robust, but with its stubby shortness this is unlikely to be an issue. The handles are dead rectangular with rounded corners and edges, 0.688" across, and the entire ensemble is 0.380" thick from peak to peak across its handle slabs. It weighs 39.2 grams or 1.38 ounces, another clue that a large portion of it may indeed be genuine titanium.

Look how weensy. Isn't it cute.

Edginess

I did not initially expect to write anything about the D2 Mini's cutting capability. It's a $7 fidget toy from China, and it'd take three of them just to comfortably fill out the Zippo pocket on your jeans. You're not really expecting anything groundbreaking, are you?

Hawk-eyed readers of course noticed the chip in the edge in the blade photo above, however, which is precisely as it was delivered from the factory. If you missed it, here it is under high magnification:

This isn't the end of the world but beats me how it happened, because the D2 Mini has absolutely no spacer pins, pegs, screws, or indeed anything at all that the edge could have contacted in any part of its operation.

The blade rests neatly in a machined pocket in one half of the handle, and its travel is restrained by a pin that rides in a little semicircular groove cut into one of the slabs. It can't be caused to contact any of the metalwork in the handle in any way, no matter how hard you try. Don't worry, you'll see more of that groove later.

All that aside, I was floored to discover that its blade geometry is precisely 20° per side, or a 40° combined edge angle. It's both true and consistent for once. So dressing that chip out of the blade took all of about four seconds on my Spyderco sharpener at one of its stock blade angles, and with no effort.

The grind is also true, even, and consistent all the way to the point which is a rare breath of fresh air with cheapies like this. All in it could have been a lot worse, and while I could have done without the chip in it right off of the starting block, at least it was trivially easy to make it possibly unwisely sharp. I can't tell if this is some indicator of quality, or just sheer dumb luck in the case of my particular example.

Gubbins

The D2 mini is only held together with one screw. It's only lightly threadlockered and required no gymnastics to remove other than sticking a plain T8 Torx driver in either side.

Contrary to all logic, reason, or expectation it's got ceramic ball bearing pivots. At its current price point it may be literally cheaper to buy one of these, throw 95% of it away, and just keep the bearings to stick in your next custom knife. At the moment a pair of 6mm inner bore ceramic thrust bearings retails for about $10, bought in non-bulk quantities.

This is all the hardware you get. Or need, for that matter. This is industrial design simplification taken all the way to its maximum extent.

The handle slabs are pocketed to accept the bearing races and here you can also see the track for the endstop pin to ride in. The machine work is impeccable. Say what you like about the Chinese, but they have this sort of thing down.

Well, except for one thing.

The endstop pin isn't 100% accurate in its track so there is a bit of rotational rattle in the blade. If you're holding the handles it's not going anywhere beyond that, mind you -- having it fold up on your knuckle is out of the question. There's no lateral play, either, thanks to the bearings. And when it's in the closed position you can't rattle the blade by shaking the knife, either, probably due in no small part to it being restrained magnetically due to its proximity to the magnets.

That's not the annoying part, though.

The Annoying Part

This is billed as a "keychain" knife. There's a hole all the way through the tail end of it, perfect for installation of said keyring. In fact, my example even came with one in the package.

Except.

You've figured it out already, haven't you?

The keyring hole has to separate when you pivot the handles. With a ring installed you can't open the knife.

That really renders the entire exercise pointless. They may as well just not have drilled that damn hole in it, for all the good it does you.

The little zipper-tab knife we looked at previously solved this by relegating its loop to only one of the handle halves. Whoever designed this was altogether too clever by half, but not quite clever enough.

The Inevitable Conclusion

In that race to have one more bullet point on the spec sheet, sometimes it's possible to go one step too far.

So it is with the D2 Mini, which would be tough to call anything but perfect -- especially considering that it's so cheap that it's near as well free -- except that some dipstick somewhere decided that it must have one more feature, and absolutely insisted that somebody drill that fucking keyring hole in it. This simple inclusion moves the D2 Mini's slider quite firmly from "neat" and sets it to "dumb." Because everyone's going to be annoyed by that, and that stench of ineptitude will follow it around forever. Now it's a joke. Can you believe these morons? R&D doesn't talk to the guys in product testing, am I right? With those kind of skills, these guys ought to be designing cars. Har-de-har, et cetera.

What a drag.

Here's a female, since a male was posted recently.

And also, a story in three pictures: