Cheap Curiousities and Expensive Ones

Cheap Curiousities and Expensive Ones

Byrichard

Mobile Phones


We are in a pandemic and I am between contracts, two reasons for which having an interest in the latest mobile phones is a futile pass time. I tried to revive my old Android phone and succeeded. I sometimes find it hard to get the phone recharged, and when it is recharged I need to keep it charged. This time I had a bonus problem. No data connection



I tried to connecting to wifi, no luck. I tried using the mobile phone’s data connection, no luck. I tried using one phone as a hotspot. No luck either. Restart the phone, no luck. In the end I tried a factory reset and the problem was resolved. Data worked both on wifi and 4g. The phone is old, but at least it allows me to play with Android when I want to.


Nettle Tea


I read that Nettle tea tastes of various things, honey, grass, slightly minty, spinach and more. The combination of those tastes didn’t sound appealing, except for mint and honey. I also wanted to see what they taste of. I spent an entire 2.95 for twenty tea bags and I tried it. When it’s dry it smells like hay, and when you smell it in boiling hot water it smells quite bad, like fish, or some other unpleasant smell. I then tasted it and it tastes like it smells when it’s dry. Hay. It’s like drinking the smell of a barn. You can see why people mix it with other flavours. Now I have one less thing to be curious about.


Jungfrau Tea


Jungfrau Tea, named after the mountains is made from seven herbs. It is made from a combination of round leaved mint, citrous thyme, orange mint, fennel seed, Lemon balm, Achilles Yarrow and mauve. I am confused by the lat one. The taste is definitely different. It has texture and I consider that it could almost be good. I have not added sugar or anything else and it has had time to sit so I may not be getting the full experience.


For more info


The Pandemic


I try not to write about the pandemic too much. We are stuck in a loop where governments make mistakes, and people who don’t follow international news go along with it. We are four or five waves into this pandemic in Switzerland and it is only possible to remain positive if we expect little from our governments. England, Switzerland and Sweden have governments that are trying to ignore the problem, and pretend that it is endemic as soon as possible.


Meanwhile in most of Asia the pandemic is under control and there is less human suffering. Europe and the US are suffering, and yet other nations are not. Some people say that it is because in the West we have selfish cultures where the individual is put on a pedestal and community is ignored, while in Asia there is community spirit, and this helps to control the pandemic.


Either way, Covid-Zero should be prioritised over the fool’s errand of endemicity.


Now you understand why I avoid writing about the pandemic.

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The Apple Watch does not fill a niche

Byrichard

The Apple Watch rather than fill a niche provides a fifth screen. According to Wikipedia the four first screens are the cinema screen, the television screen and the mobile phone and tablet screen. The fifth screen is the smart watch as designed by Apple, Samsung, Sony and others. Apple and others have designed phones that bring the mobile phone experience to the wrist.

Energy efficient

Suunto, Garmin, Fitbit and other brands fill the wrist worn niche effectively because they have designed devices with energy efficient displays that provide tracking whilst at the same time giving extended battery life.

Extended battery life in use

Health trackers by fitbit and other companies have been designed to last for a week or more whilst tracking movement 24 hours a day. Suunto, Garmin and other brands have designed watches that can track activities for hours or even days before they need charging.

Long stand by time

When not in use all of the devices mentioned above can last for weeks. In the case of the Suunto Ambit two I have found that it loses one percentage of charge per day. As a result of this it can be used as a watch for three months before I need to think of charging.

Data analysis

All of these tools are for collecting data about the route you took, the intensity of the exercise tracked, heart rate and complementary information. When synced on the computer or website a lot of information is presented. Garmin syncs with Runkeeper, Strava, Garmin connect and other services, Suunto syncs with Movescount and Strava intuitively. Fitbit syncs with the fitbit site and other fitness apps. The most interesting data is analysed on a computer rather than the wrist unit. This leaves the device to track information cost effectively, where cost is battery life, and effective is defined by how long you can track an activity.

Conclusion:

My passion for “smart watches” stems from scuba diving. I bought a Suunto D9 to track dives and loved taking dive data and analysing it in view of improving my diving ability. I tracked training at the gym, hiking and other activities with various phones and their weakness was battery life. When you go for a hike in the mountains, go for a via ferrata or do a number of other sporting activities for extended periods of time you want a device that can last as long as you do.

Suunto’s Ambit 2 filled that need very well, so well that I upgraded to the Suunto Ambit 3. As an android user I can’t  take advantage of all the features yet but that will come soon, this month in fact.

The Apple Watch does not fill any of the requirements I have listed above and for this reason I am not tempted. I see it as a fifth screen that does not fill a niche. Fitness trackers, fitness watches and other devices cost the same price or less and fill niche requirements effectively. Why would I want a gimmick?

Podcasts on the Android

Byrichard

For three days now I have been listening to podcasts on the Nexus one using Listen. It is a podcast app that allows you to subscribe to and download podcasts from the comfort of the mobile device.

What I like about this app is the ease with which you can select which podcasts to listen to. If you want to listen to This week in tech for example just type the name of the podcast and it will find those feeds, allow you to subscribe or manually select which podcasts to listen to.

Another aspect of the search feature which I like is the search for keywords function. It displays a number of podcasts according to the keyword.

As an example I typed hike to see which podcasts would be suggested. I found some trailcast podcasts and so downloaded a podcast. It works well. If you enjoy the podcast then you can subscribe to and download the podcasts.

The settings tab has an interesting set of options. You can tell it to download new apps when possible, select whether you want the downloads to occur when you are using wifi or over the air using the data plan. You can set how many podcasts you want to store on the device at any one time.

One of the best features for me is that when you have a few hours to listen to podcasts rather than work by podcast subscription this software allows you to listen to podcasts in queue order. What this means is that I may be listening to This week in tech, then this week in google before moving on to the BBC history podcast and finishing with a trail cast podcast. With this system you do not need to interrupt what you are doing to get to the next podcast.

The benefit of a podcast client that is within the phone is that you can select what to listen to whilst on the move. As a benefit of this you are less likely to download hundreds of podcasts you end up never listening to.

The last feature is that it is synched with Google Reader. This means that you can see those subscriptions from any google reader application. It is stored in the cloud so should work across multiple devices.

This is the future of podcasting, and media consumption. It takes advantage of the power that modern devices can sync from anywherwe at anytime, that your habits and tastes may change and that you actualise it from any machine, computer, or mobile.