The Roche Au Dade Via Ferrata
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The Roche Au Dade Via Ferrata

Byrichard

Two days ago I was agonising about whether to go for a via ferrata(VF) or a hike. Eventually I decided that I would go for the hike, because hiking was an 18 minute drive away. I went for a walk/run and then I found that I had a burning desire to do the via ferrata. I went down to the cave and rummaged through to find various bits and pieces. I found my Grigri, climbing rope, harnesses and more. I also found that I had a tandem speed which I considered using.

It’s amusing. I had a real, deep, burning passion to do the Via Ferrata. I had forgotten how it feels to prepare for something that is potentially dangerous, but in reality very safe, if you follow the rules and regulations of the sport. It’s fun to consider whether to use the brand new VF set or to use the slightly older set. My slightly older set might have been used on one or two VF before I broke my arm and stopped climbing from 2019-2024 or so.

When I was walking along the port’s high wall in Javea in 2001 or so I felt scared at being three or four meters in height, compared to the road beneath. I questioned how I would cope with the heights that we encounter on a VF. I hoped that I would not be scared of heights again.

Luckily Via Ferrata is something you don’t forget. I found that all of my old Via Ferrata habits were still there. The habit of keeping arms straight, of resting when required, of taking pictures, of day dreaming and of patiently waiting for the rest of the group. At one or two points I was asked “why are you waiting” and the answer is simple. If I went at my speed the one and a half hour VF would take fourty five minutes. I have done VFs every weekend every summer for years so I am perfectly at home on VFs.

I was so “at home” that I took 72 photos during the VF.

The one challenge I faced was keeping the phone safe. I would have taken more photos but my key concern was dropping the phone if I slipped or lost my balance. I didn’t have as much flexibility to take photos as I would have liked. I need to find a system that gives me that flexibility. When I was doing VF all the time I had a strap so that if I dropped a camera it would drop less than a meter. Yesterday I was taking a risk every time I took photos.

In the past, when doing Via ferrata regularly, I have smashed one or two cameras to bits as they hit the rocks, over and over again. The best solution might be to use the Garmin virb.

About the Via Ferata Itself

The Roche au Dade Via Ferrata is about 45 minutes from Nyon. It is located in the valley that you pass by as you drive from Switzerland to England and vice versa. You get off the main road, drive through the village and head to a small simple parking. There are three or four routes that you can take. You have an introductory VF that takes you across several bridges. You also have the option of just going to do the zipline. There are two of them but for the second one you need to be more experienced to get to it.

For the most part I would class the VFs as easy but that’s with years of VF experience. There is one bit on the classic route that I think people should be wary of. It’s the vertical climb after the last monkey bridge because it is more vertical and physical than the other parts. This is where people might struggle if they are not prepared.

I like that there are three or four routes to enjoy because you can spend more than fourty five minutes here. You also have a picnick table. You can climb one part, get back down, have a snack or drink and do the other parts.

As you can see from the featured photo the via ferrata is right on the road, as is the parking so access time is quick.

And Finally

In the end I’m happy that I chose to climb with the Via Ferrata group rather than hike with the hiking group. One of the advantages of doing something with a smaller group is that you get to know the people better. I definitely want to do more activities with this group and I’m happy that we ended the day with a drink before driving home. I think that “end of activity” drinks, even if it’s orangina, are important.

Experimenting with the Ocean Drive Street E-Scooter
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Experimenting with the Ocean Drive Street E-Scooter

Byrichard

Over a year ago I sold my petrol scooter because the service was expected to cost more than five hundred Swiss Francs. As a result of this I was without a scooter for a year or two. In that time I missed the convenience of having a small vehicle to take me from A to B with ease, and that I could park with ease.

Sitting Scooters Cost Too Much For Their Range

I considered getting an electric sit down scooter but when I saw the range and the price I decided that this was not a viable solution. I want a scooter that has the range to take me to Geneva and back on a single charge, to go to places like Mediamarkt, Decathlon and the centre of the city. With a 60km range I can barely accomplish that wish.

Years of Deciding Not To

For years I have been tempted by standing e-scooters but what stopped me was price. They cost 600-1200 CHF for years. At this price I considered them to be a waste of money. When I was in Spain I spotted that e-scooters had gone down in price by a considerable amount so I tested three or four scooters. I tried them in Carrefour and Décathlon and they felt fine.

I spent at least two or three days considering whether to get one while in Spain but chose not to. I decided that since they were around the same price in Switzerland I would wait until I was home. I waited longer than that.

Finally at a Reduced Price

I think I waited a further two or three months before committing to getting a scooter. What pushed me to get the scooter I got was that it was the cheapest scooter available at the time. It is currently being sold for 270 CHF but I bought it for 240 CHF. It has a range of 20km at 20km per hour and yesterday I finally got to ride it from the height of Nyon, up to the jura, and back down. In the process I think I used one or two bars of power.

Not as Lazy as I thought

The first thing that struck me as I rode the scooter is that you need to get used to it. You’re higher than on foot scooters so your centre of gravity is slightly higher than usual. This means that you need to familiarise yourself with the feel of this device.

The second thing to realise is that this is a motorised scooter. If you press the throttle and it reaches 20 km/h it will stick to that speed even if you put your foot down. You need to break for the scooter to start slowing down, unlike a human powered scooter.

This scooter has a “cruise control” as I will name it. If you press the accelerator for a few seconds at 20 km/h it will automatically throttle up or down to stick to that speed for when you’re driving at that speed for several minutes.

When you’re going uphill you feel that your primary leg is working to keep you standing upright. It’s not as lazy as I expected. I see plenty of people riding with both feet together but I ride it like a goofy snowboard. I want to be ready in case I hit something and fall.

The Use Cases

There are four use cases that I envision. The first is to go to the shops spontaneously, to get food. With the car I feel that I can go once, or twice per week, not more. With the e-scooter I could go daily. It’s just 2km anyway.

The second use case is to go to Geneva. I can take the scooter to Nyon, catch the train to Geneva, or Lausanne, do what I need to do, and then do the reverse trip.

The third use case is to have it in the car for when I go somewhere. With the scooter I can park where it’s free to park and then go into towns.

The fourth is recycling. The recycling centre for my area is bad to get into with a car due to the narrow roads. With a scooter I could go there and back with two or three days of recycling, without being part of the problem. By using the scooter I have plenty of space on that narrow road, and I can recycle within ten minutes every few days, rather than once per month as I do at the moment.

It has Lights but No Indicators

One of the most serious issues I see, at the moment, is that it lacks indicators. This means that you really need to keep looking behind you, and checking that you’re safe before manoeuvering. I wanted to go left at a roundabout so I went to the left, after checking behind me. I went extra early, as I saw a motorbike. I did the manoeuvre and tried, as far as possible, to stick to agricultural roads rather than main roads.

Situational Awareness

I feel that it’s very important to have good situational awareness at all times on the e-scooter. It’s important to know where cars are and how fast they’re approaching. It’s important to look at the road surface to avoid any holes that could catapult you forwards if you’re not careful.

Eco and Drive

It has two modes, eco, and drive. If you’re on flat terrain then eco mode will work well but as soon as you’re on a steep climb you need to shift to drive mode. I found that it was either going to be too slow or unable to do one steep climb. Luckily I could stop to change mode, before continuing on.

Balance

I see the same two or three people on their scooters on a regular basis and they’re so comfortable they can take both hands off of the steering column to do things. I am not that confident yet so I barely take my hands off of the handle bars. I want to get used to driving the scooter before I indicate that I want to go right or left, if cars are behind me. There is a learning curve, which we have to be attentive to.

And Finally

Although I loved the idea of getting an electric sitting scooter the lack of range and high price makes them uninteresting. The electric standing scooter has a theoretical range of 20km but after yesterday’s test I expect the range to be greater than that. The point of the electric scooter is that it can be used alongside trains and buses. You take the scooter to a train station, take the train, and then use the scooter on the other side. It shortens the commute time.

It could provide me with an interesting new way of getting around when the weather co-operates.

The Nyon to Gland Loop
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The Nyon to Gland Loop

Byrichard

It is possible to walk from Nyon to Gland and back in a single day, and to play Ingress in Gland, before meeting a meetup group to walk back to Nyon from Gland, via the Toblerone. The distance I walked was twenty eight kilometres but this is partially due to spending an hour in Gland, after arriving much sooner than planned.

The route I walked was around Emil Frey towards Porte De Nyon shopping centre, onto the roundabout where you can go East towards Prangins. I walked along the road that is below Duiller towards Prangins, down under the tunnel, up by the train station of Prangins, and then along the road that takes you by the Aérodrome de Prangins where the Junkers 52 aircraft, or an aircraft that looks similar was being started up. It took off sooner than I thought. If I had known I would have stuck around to watch.

After this I walked by some Toblerone and a bunker where junk was being stored, for some reason. I expected that I would walk by this point with the group but we didn’t.

When I arrived in Gland I had over an hour to kill so I walked around, playing Ingress before deciding that I should stop and conserve energy before the next bit of the walk. Nyon to Gland was just eight kilometres so it’s an easy back and forth, if you follow the rational route.

The Toblerone route is the long way round. One interesting aspect of the Toblerone walk, from Gland, is that you walk by the HS2 data centre in Gland. It’s a large building with very few windows. It has 14,000 m2 of server racks and more with 40mw of power usage. It is the biggest data centre in Switzerland.

Migrating Audiobookshelf From Instance to Instance
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Migrating Audiobookshelf From Instance to Instance

Byrichard

Yesterday I switched from Ubuntu on the Pi5 to Raspberry Pi’s version of Debian. I experimented this because I had just moved the data from one file system to another so it seemed like the right time to switch from one OS to another.

ExFat to Ext4

The first step was to move my data from an Exfat volume to an Ext4 volume. The next was to mount the drive and connect both Photoprism and Audiobookshelf to their new volumes. I also copied the audiobookshelf folder from the system drive for the old OS to the system on the new OS. I then adapted the docker-compose files with the correct information and started both Photoprism and Audiobookshelf.

Photoprism

Photoprism is now reindexing all photographs from the photos folder. Once that is done I will migrate the photos from the import folder. I am not doing that yet, because I don’t want it to confuse which files are already in the archive, and which ones are duplicates during the upcoming import. I expect this to take several days.

Audiobookshelf

With Audiobookshelf I was able to copy over the books with ease but I need to add some new books that I bought since the last update. I did not migrate podcasts. Although I enjoy using Audiobookshelf to listen to podcasts I find that it is quite fiddly. You need to login as the admin to add podcast series, and configure how many podcasts to download and how often to check.

If there was an app for iOS for Audiobookshelf then I would really enjoy using the service. It’s easier to use the default apps. If I listen to podcasts on two to three apps I need to mark them as read in one or two other places and that’s work. For now I will keep audiobookshelf for books and the most recent podcasts from one or two podcasteers.

And Finally

Although the server changed from one OS to another, the hard drive where files are stored changed the applications behave as if nothing had changed. This means that I do not need to login to services yet again. This also means that I can now start duplicating a server setup between machines once I understand how to synchronise changes.

ExFat Stability Issues
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ExFat Stability Issues

Byrichard

Yesterday a drive failed to mount so Photoprism and Audiobookshelf failed to work. The server was up and running but the files were not accessible. For this reason two of my services have been unusable for several hours. I believe that the issue came from using an ExFAT drive rather than EXT4 or another journalled file system.

The reason for which journalling is important is that Pis and other systems crash, and when they crash, read write cycles are not completed. The consequence of this is that the drive that had been fine before the crash becomes corrupted after the crash and needs to be fixed. Most of the time this is quite easy. I use disk utility two to three times, and eventually the problem is fixed long enough to backup the data.

Why This Matters

The rational thing to do is to think, “I’m using these drives for something that NAS drives are designed for so it’s normal that external drives would fail.” The reality is that the file system has a bigger role to play than the drive type. If the drive keeps track of what it was doing, and what was interrupted then it can quickly resume from where it left off. Without a journal the drive just sees missing data and asks for repairs to be done. By “asks for repairs to be done” I mean that it fails to mount until the issue is resolved.

Looking Forward

From now on I will use ExFAT as a temporary solution for when I move data from one OS to another but once the move is finished I will use APFS for mac, EXT4 for Linux systems and NTSF or equivalent for windows when flexibility is not needed. It’s easy to format a drive to a more resilient file system.

And Finally

Once I have backed up the data I will reformat the drive to EXT4 and copy the data back. This should make the drive more resilient.

A Short Run After Two Walks with Hiking Sticks
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A Short Run After Two Walks with Hiking Sticks

Byrichard

In the last three days I have been for two walks with hiking sticks and a short run. On Sunday the walk was a ten kilometre loop that took me across several villages. During the walk I noticed that a barn’s roof was generating about 8000 watts of energy despite the day being overcast. If more farmers placed solar panels on their roofs we would have less need for high tension lines across the entirety of Europe ruining natural landscapes as power distribution would be local.

A short Run

I ran just 2.5km before walking the rest of the way. I wasn’t using the 105 CHF On Running cyclon shoes as I need to return those. Instead I was running with the 110 CHF trail glove shoes. I ran a short distance because I haven’t been running for a while so I don’t want to overload my system. I also wanted to make sure that I didn’t feel that my heels had hit the ground too harshly.

Interval Training

I walked for five minutes and then I ran for one minute, and then I ran for one minute, and then I walked for a minute, and then I ran until the bottom of a slope and then I walked up the other side, and then I ran for the flat bit up to the tunnel and then I stopped the running track. I could have been more ambitious but it’s easy to fall into the trap of pushing more than we need to, just for it to look normal or good on strava, Garmin or other places. I am a walker, not a runner. I can walk one and a half hours to two hours per day, every single day, with ease.

I could get to that level of fitness with running but at the moment I need to work on building a good base, and then I can push further. It’s also a way of breaking the walking routine. if I run I can go out for a shorter period of time but get a better cardio workout.

Not Quite Nordic Walking

I started walking with hiking sticks, first because I have a minimal shield if unleashed dogs decide to attack me again, and secondly because it uses my upper body. By the end of the walk on Sunday I could feel that some arm muscles were not used enough in normal walking.

It’s amusing to look at cadence when walking with hiking sticks because for a big portion of the walk my steps per minute was zero. When I use walking sticks I make them long. I take two to three steps between stick movements so it counts as if I am either not walking, or taking a third as many steps as normal. That’s why my step count after a 10km walk is just 8000 for the whole day, rather than 17,000 as it would have been if the step counter had been in a pocket or somewhere else.

And Finally

For the first time in a while I went for a walk without a bag. Usually I always have a bag with me, whether it’s empty, which it usually is, or not. I don’t know whether it impacts my running comfort but I will try to run without a bag for a few runs, to see if I feel a change.

YouTube suggesting Six Videos at a Time
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YouTube suggesting Six Videos at a Time

Byrichard

Yesterday when looking at YouTube over lunch I noticed that they now show six videos at a time, compared to the 20-30 videos they used to show, back in the good old days. This means that you have six videos to choose from. The algorithm is cutting down our choice constantly from 30 videos down to 20. and now 6.

Pigeon Holed

If we watch one channel’s content then that content will be shown exclusively until we grow tired of it, and then we will have to choose from a dozen or less content creators. Sometimes videos will appear in three or four categories. It’s hard to browse when there is so little choice.

Plenty of Choice

In the days of renting DVDs for a night or two we would go into the shop and there would be a few recommendations but then we could go into the library and search for a while, trying to find content by genre, mood or more. Today that browsing experience is getting worse.

When I look for something to watch on YouTube or Netflix and Prime I want to have a real choice. I want to see a breadth of choice within a single screen. I don’t want to be forced to watch what algorithms force people to watch. If you recommend content because it’s popular, but it’s popular because it has been pushed on people, then it is not popular. It is spoon fed. The algorithms are cheating us and content creators. We’re being cheated because we have no choice, and content creators are cheated because they are invisible.

The Paradox

What I liked about YouTube is that it provided us with a breadth of content to choose from. We might have browsed for a few minutes and skimmed through thousands of videos but we had real choice to find ideal content. Now, with six videos being shown at a time we’re forced to pick out of six. This isn’t choice. This is scarcity. Thousands of hours of content are uploaded to youtube every minute and yet the algorithms get everyone to watch the same thing.

The problem is that I don’t know what I want to watch for half an hour to an hour so I don’t have key words that I want to look for. If I’m forced to see six videos, rather than browse, then I’m likely to give up rather than search. Usually we look at YouTube and similar sites to discover new content.

Prime

YouTube wants us to pay for prime but they take our ability to choose. They use algorithms that, because content is pushed on us, become worse and worse with recommendations. We can give feedback, but not proper feedback. I sign up for Prime, enjoy it for a few weeks, and then it becomes toxic and I take a break. The algorithms pigeon hole us, rather than learn about us.

And Finally

I love the medium of video. I love well produced content. I love content of a certain type. Google’s algorithms looks at users and recommends the content that it would give to teenagers to 40 years olds, and vice versa. The recommendation engine knows our age, and our viewing habits over a decade and a half. If people are worried about privacy, just look at ads and YouTube recommendations and you will realise that algorithms know nothing about us. Algorithms, by now, should know that I hate sensationalism. I realise that hating sensationalism is sensationalist. The point is that if recommendations for content are bad, then we are likely to take a break.

Downgrading Icloud from 200 GB to 50 GB
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Downgrading Icloud from 200 GB to 50 GB

Byrichard

If there was the option to downgrade from 200GB to 100 GB I would have taken it as I needed 51.6 gigabytes to backup my phone and other data. Since I couldn’t I went through and removed my photo backup as well as back ups of folders that don’t need to be backed up because they are cloud serice in the first place. Imagine the rational of backing up backups. It makes sense, but without exageration.

I am able to downgrade because I have Immich, Kdrive, Photoprism and Nextcloud backing up my photos as well as two to three hard drives. The beauty of this solution is that I go from spending 36 CHF per year for iCloud down to 10 CHF per year. I go from spending 100 CHF per year down to about 35 CHF per year, and I go from being obliged to be loyal to cloud providers because I had no local backup of everything, to being free to jump from service to service on a whim. By whim I mean that I can dump a service as soon as a cheaper option appears.

There are two reasons for me dumping iCloud. The first is that they’re more expensive than all other solutions so to use them is to throw away money. The second reason, and the more damning one is that if you store photos on iCloud once you reach a certain library size you’re trapped.

You’re trapped because although you can create several libraries on external drives you can only download photos from the cloud on the system drive, not others. This means that with a 500 GB laptop drive that is full with files you’re trapped within iCloud. Your data is locked in until you get a mac mini, add a two terabyte drive, and download all your files.

In the end I used Immich, Photoprism and Kdrive to backup the data that was trapped in the cloud before removing photo sync from the phone with iCloud, relying on Immich, Photoprism, Nextcloud and Kdrive. Why so many services you may ask. Experimentation, and redundancy. Immich is in very active development so they recommend not to rely on it. Photoprism seems stable. Nextcloud is good too, but it’s better for backing up files from computers and more. Kdrive is the offsite backup.

And Finally

Now that Nextcloud takes care of synching files between devices and Immich, Kdrive and other solutions take care of backing up photos and videos there is less pressure for me to use cloud services such as iCloud. I keep the 50GB plan because I can still backup my phone in the cloud as well as various app data. If it was not for these constraints I could dump iCloud entirely. The biggest storage hog on iCloud is the phone’s backup.

Playing with OpenAudible and Audiobookshelf
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Playing with OpenAudible and Audiobookshelf

Byrichard

Last night I finished converting all my audiobooks to a DRM free format. In the process I learned that the m4b format renders much faster than mp3. I spent weeks trying to convert AAX files to mp3 and then by accident I agreed to convert files to m4b and it took the time it took for me to walk on my daily walk to be done.

Migrated to Audiobookshelf

Now that all the files have been converted to mp3 and m4b I have uploaded them to Audiobookshelf. Some files failed to import. The rest imported with ease. The advantage that I now have is that I can browse through my audiobook collection faster than if I use either Audible’s phone app and their website. The other advantage is that my files are self-hosted locally so unless my hard drives fail I have my own copy, as I would if I had bought physical books.

Fiddly

When you’re listening to Audiobooks on a laptop the website works well. When you’re listening on an iOS device the epxerience is slightly more complicated. You need to navigate to the website in a browser, find the book, and then start listening. If you use it for podcasts then it plays one podcast and then you need to select the next. On a computer podcasts play one after another.

Create Users

Audiobookshelf allows you to create users. You can have one that has admin privilieges that is used just to add podcasts and create libraries etc and a second one to use as a user. By seperating the two there is less chance of making a mistake.

You can create multiple libraries for multiple users, so in theory you can create a library per person, for them to upload their own books. You cannot restrict library A to user A, library B to user B etc. You can control whether people can upload, download and more. You can give people access to listen, via the site, but restrict who can download to keep.

And Finally

OpenAudible and Audiobookshelf give us a way to keep the content that we spent money buying for our own personal use. If Amazon or Audible go bankrupt then we do not end up with nothing, after spending 100+ usd per year for content. I like both OpenAudible and Audiobookshelf