Planned Obscolesence as Fragility

Planned Obscolesence as Fragility

Byrichard

I want to discuss Planned obsolescence as fragility. In the days of Nokia you could buy a phone and give it to a teenage boy and expect it to survive without breaking. I know because I was a teenage boy with a Nokia phone. So were plenty of my peers. It was more likely that someone would lose or drown their phone than break it. I only broke one phone display in those days and that took some effort. 


Ingress


A few years ago I was playing Ingress and I managed to shatter three screens in quick succession and it was frustrating but it was due to me walking while playing ingress. I replaced the screens three times before I bought a rugged crosscall phone that was designed to withstand falls, submersion and more. I didn’t use it for long because I had connectivity issues. These were android devices. 


Lifeproof, Otterbox and Quad lock


When the risk of breaking phones increased so did the need for protective cases. I have used lifeproof cases for iphones, otterbox for iphones and a blackberry device and quad lock for the most recent iphone. I use these cases because dropping a phone just once will shatter either the front panel or the back panel. It’s for this reason that I used an iphone SE for more than a year. You can break the screen but you can’t break the back. 


I thought another iphone wouldn’t fit with the protective case within the clasps of the DJI drone remote control so I took it out of it’s protective case. Within 30 seconds the phone fell to the floor and the rear glass shattered. I promptly put the phone back into its case. 


On the one hand brands like Apple say “Look at our beautiful device devices, they’re so sleek and elegant” and then you shatter one of the screens within days of getting it and you think “What is the point of elegance if it shatters?”


The unfinished device


The Unfinished device I am thinking of is the Apple Watch. As I mentioned in an earlier post I have had at least half a dozen fitness watches and two diving watches. My Suunto Ambit 3 came with me for three years of sporting activites without showing any real signs of wear and tear. The straps are fine, the screen is fine. The only signs of wear are on the bezel that protects the screen and this is key. 


Most luxury watches use sapphire glass and despite the rugged qualities of this glass they protect them with a protective bezel. If you’re climbing and hit the watch against rocks, metal rungs, door frames or other surfaces the bezel keeps the glass safe. 


I know for a fact that my suunto Ambit 3 took rock impacts straight to the screen as I climbed but the glass is concave, sloping inwards from the centre to the bezel. If it suffers an impact it is designed to survive. 


The Apple watch has an unprotected glass screen that is flat. It is unsuitable for climbing because when you’re climbing your wrists hit rock, metal, resin hand moulds and ropes or cables. Whereas Suunto watches are designed for rugged sports Apple watches are designed for park runs and boardrooms. You find articles like this one about how to protect your apple watch when doing sports. To me the notion that you would need to protect a sports tracking watch is absurd. The whole reason for a sports tracking watch is to be light and tough, to survive indoor climbing. 


In indoor climbing the materials you come across are wood, metal and resin hand holds. They’re not granite, limestone and other forms of rock. They’re soft and forgiving. 


I have a theory that the hairline fractures that appeared on my screen after a fourth session of climbing with this watch were caused either by A) the rope somehow whipping the screen and fracturing it or B) When going from one hold to another I applied pressure to the screen at just the right angle for it to shatter in two places, splitting the touchscreen in three. 


The display itself is fine. The only reason I noticed the damage is that the touch screen failed to respond. 


Take it off


The most absurd suggestion to not damaging a sport apple watch is to take it off when you’re exercising. If you buy a sports version of the apple watch is taking it off a viable solution? If that’s the solution then buy a suunto or a garmin. They cost the same, have good battery life and they will survive any sport you can survive. Just google search broken suunto screen. A search for broken Garmin screen will yield broken screens. 


The protective sleeve


If a solution to protecting a device is a protective sleeve then it is an unfinished device. Your biggest fear with a watch should be that the screen gets scratched as you use it over the years. It shouldn’t be that you shatter it while climbing indoors. 


Conclusion – Buy a case


If you buy an iPhone you should automatically get a case. With Apple’s current design philosophy you should not buy an Apple watch until you can buy a protective case for it. The new design philosophy for mobile phones, watches, and as of yesterday laptops is to push the boundaries of survivability to their limits. I hope that the trend to make things more fragile goes away. 

Thinking about Bike locks

Thinking about Bike locks

Byrichard

Recently I have been thinking about bike locks. I have been looking at the variety of options that there are and for a while I was worried about bike theft. It is for that reason that I never left my bikes unattended for more than half a minute to a minute during bike rides. 


This is easy when you’re going on 30-100km bike rides where you spend all of your time with the bike but what about when you replace your scooter with a bike. I never worried about leaving my scooter unattended and so far no one has stolen it. Logically I should have felt the same way about bikes and bike locks but I don’t. 


For years I was happy with the springy cable bike locks that everyone had but recently as I have seen D or U-locks I have been curious to see what works best. If you’re using D/U locks you need to find something to fix the bike too and that’s impractical most of the time. You could use a standard spring lock to get the appropriate distance but anyone with bolt cutters could knick a bike within seconds. 


I recently remembered that my concern about bikes being stolen is based on the fact that a few years ago a gang came and stole every bike that was not secured from the garages. They tried to take my bike from 1996 but after a short distance abandoned it. By this time the tires were ruined and the bike was covered in dust and dirt from years of neglect. 


A bunch of bikes were stolen a few years ago


After that experience I always kept bikes either in the basement or when I was riding a lot in the landing. When you ride a lot it’s nice to have everything organised and ready to go. Carrying it up and down a staircase, getting covered in dirt and potentially dirtying the walls is not ideal. I won’t disclose where I keep bikes between uses. 


Organised Gangs taking bikes


I went to try an e-bike recently and at the end of the trial I asked the bike shop owner about bike thefts and both he and a customer laughed. He told me that organised gangs come to Geneva with a van and just take every bike that they can fit into the van, whether electric or other. I haven’t checked with police to see whether this information is correct so I class it as possibly true, rather than fact. 


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGvfiLla7X0


Yesterday as I walked around Geneva I looked at how bikes were locked up. I saw that most of them were using the Ugrip Bordo style lock. I saw them used to lock most kinds of bike. They have a security rating between 7-10 so they’re moderately secure. As you see from the video above a bike lock doesn’t take long to break if someone has the right tools. 


Ugrip Bordo style lock


It is for this reason that I have two bikes. I have one bike for when I want to do medium to long distances ranging from 30-100km and another that I use for going to the shops. The one I use for the shops is one of the cheapest and simplest bikes I could find. After today’s errands it has its first mud splatters. I was using a level 10 D-lock but found it impractical in certain places so I moved to a ugrip lock instead. The lock is marginally less secure but I was encouraged by the fact that so many people feel safe enough to leave their bikes secured with such a system. 


Vélostation


There is a third option. For 2 CHF per day, 7 CHF per week, 20CHF per month, 150CHF per year or 200CHF for every bike parking you can park your bike at the vélostations by these locations: CFF Cornavin, Montbrillant, P+R Etoile, P+R Genève-Plage, Hôtel des Finances, P+R Sécheron, P+R Sous-Moulin and Uni-Dufour. The strength of this system is that bikes should be more secure but the weakness of this system is that you don’t have the convenience of parking the bike by your destination. 


Bikeep


https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=58&v=BJ58bJNPPyc
In theory you could use this, if and when it becomes available. 


Publibike


The last option is to use bike sharing services like Publibike. There are a few stations in the Canton de Vaud, you can rent by hour for up to 25CHF per day or go for other options. They offer both human powered bikes and electric bikes. A mobile app allows you to see where bikes are available as well as where to park them. 


Conclusion


According to this website 40,000 bikes are stolen a year and only 500 are recovered in Switzerland. Bike locks offer protection from opportunists but not organised gangs as demonstrated above. If you have a higher range bike you can park it in specialist parkings and if you have a low to mid-range bike you can lock it close to your destination. People in Geneva seem to trust ugrip style locks so that’s what I opted for with a low end bike that I can use for errands. 

Indoor Climbing and the Apple Watch

Indoor Climbing and the Apple Watch

Byrichard

After just three climbing activities the Apple watch screen broke, rendering its smart features unusable. 


Indoor Climbing and the Apple Watch are a bad mix. They are a bad mix because the Apple watch has an unprotected glass screen. The screen is so exposed that last Thursday I shattered the screen without realising until I got home and tried to use it but the capacitive screen did not respond. 


At first I couldn’t see anything so I tried to feel it with my nail (whatever is left of it after an evening of climbing) and I could hardly feel anything. Eventually by trying to look at the surface with light from different angles I could see two distinct cracks in the screen splitting the screen in to three distinct segments. 


If I was your average smartwatch user I’d say that this is normal because smartwaches are made to be intelligent, not solid. I’d then point you to the fact that I have had suunto diving watches, Suunto feature watches and then Suunto Flagship watches such as the Ambit 2, 3 and then the Suunto Spartan watches. The Suunto Ambit 2 and Ambit 3 survived years of climbing, both rock climbing and via ferrata. 


My Apple Watch Series 3 was “accidentally damaged”, the way Apple describes the condition of my watch, after just three climbing sessions. I had bouldered once, climbed once indoors, and once outdoors without issue. It’s when I went climbing indoors the second time that I must have done something to hairline fracture the glass. 


In my humble opinion, with over 700 tracked activities with Suunto devices without issues, Apple is fatally flawed. In my opinion a smartwatch should be designed so that the screen is protected. The screen should be designed to survive what life has to throw at it. My Suunto Ambit 2 and 3 have had countless impacts on rocks over the years. You can see on the bezel of my Suunto devices that they have countless scratches. The glass however is fine. You need to look carefully to see any sign of scratches. 


It is with this in mind that I strongly feel that Apple should take responsibility for making a device so mediocre that it gets cracked while climbing indoors. Indoor climbing is on wooden panels and fiberglass holds. It’s not on granite or other hard rock surfaces. A watch screen should survive this environment. 


Replacing the watch screen via Apple would cost 230 CHF without taxes, possibly about 250 CHF with taxes. The watch itself cost 397 CHF new. It goes without saying that I did not ask for the unit to be fixed. It is because of Apple’s poor design that this watch suffered damage and it is Apple’s responsibility to replace the unit free of charge. 


I didn’t drop it, I didn’t smash my wrist against something. I didn’t even know the unit was damaged until I got home and tried to use it. Fitness tracking watches should not be this fragile. 

CuriosityStream – a place to find interesting documentaries

Byrichard

Yesterday I started exploring CuriosityStream, a video streaming website that makes finding and watching documentaries easy. You can have a trial run of seven days but after watching three documentaries since yesterday evening I am convinced that it is a place where I want to watch more content. 


I like documentaries that are well produced and enhance my understanding of topics. The documentaries I have watched are Dawn of the Oceans and the first episode of Quantum Physics yesterday. Today I watched Ships that Changed the World. 


For documentaries to be worthwhile they must inform and educate their audiences without sensationalism and breathless commentary. They must also provide information that is interesting and relevant. I also believe that to a certain degree they need to be neutral. With Netflix I feel that their documentaries are out to push an agenda, are not that well produced and slide towards low production values and partisanship. 


When documentaries are well produced they are like books. They enhance your understanding of a subject and by the end of the film or episode you come away having learned something.  



The categories so far are Science, History, Technology, Nature, Society, Lifestyle and 360 videos. In the 360 videos I noticed that there is the ZDF documentary about volcanoes. This was one of the most impressive and effective uses of 360 video I have seen. 


You can browse through these categories and find films on specific topics and watch them then and there or you can browse through and add these documentaries to a watch list. This is useful when watching series. 


A sample watchlist. 


When you find documentaries that are especially interesting you can share them straight from curiositystream to Facebook and Twitter. 



Curiositystream is quick to respond to tweets. If you have comments or feedback there is a high probability that they will be seen. 


https://twitter.com/CuriosityStream/status/1055459403002867712

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Riding Zwift(ly) Through New York

Byrichard

When I heard that Zwift would allow us to ride our bikes through a virtual New York I joked that I would use my singlespeed and I hoped that I could ride through the streets. Unfortunately you get to ride through the New York countryside, otherwise known as Central Park. Imagine riding through the Autumnal Hamptons at this time of year. 


I have ridden three or four times in virtual New York, once for pleasure and two or three times for training. As you saw from a previous post I really suffered on my second to last ride. I went rock climbing Saturday, to take a break from cycling and Sunday I returned and succeeded. 


The glass cycling paths are an interesting idea. It’s nice to be able to ride above the traffic and see small parts of the city from a drone’s eye view. ;-). This isn’t today’s New York. Is is 2099 New York, with flying cars, glass roads and despite this modernity people wearing rather ordinary jackets as they “watch” cyclists go around the routes. 


The Riding in circles glitch


Some people have found a “feature” whereby they can run around in a circle as if they were turning around over and over. When I asked them what the track looked like on Strava they showed that it shows that bug so it’s should not be complicated to resolve this issue, if it is always at the same point. Imagine if Zwift and Rockstar games created a mod so we could have virtual rides in GTA V. 


Some elevation gains


In a one and a half hour session riding through Zwift New York, I climbed six hundred and sixty-six metres. A few people have commented that this version of New York is too hilly and others have commented that smart trainers can be set to 0 difficulty to negate those hills. 


Two video summaries


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKkfcfa0N3c&t=16s


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m38XZd_1ic

Coming to the limitations of a simple home trainer

Byrichard

The challenge is being gradual enough to react to the lag in power reading. A few training sessions ago I tried pedalling hard, overshooting the watts required but found that it was hard to catch the momentum just right. I then tried the opposite. I tried pedalling faster, to get to the desired wattage and then changing gear and keeping the wheel going at that momentum. This worked for a period. 


Today I hit the wall. The methods that I mention above work well on rested legs but because I have been playing with Zwift frequently, including fun rides after the training sessions I have fatigued my legs. They are unable to hold the gradual effort changes that are required by the training courses. 


As I saw that I couldn’t maintain the required effort for the required time I aborted the effort in the hope of trying again in two or three days, when I recover. 


It is frustrating and the natural thing would be to blame the tools and buy a smart home trainer with erg mode to do the mental maths for me. The second option would be to buy pedals with power metres. I am not going to do either of these things. I am going to rest my legs by going for easier rides for a day or two and, then, when my legs have recovered I will start playing again. 

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Google Plus is Shutting Down in August

Byrichard

By shutting Google plus in August 2019 Google have shut down one of my favourite social networks. From the start I have said that it reminded me of Jaiku, an excellent, european alternative to Jaiku that never reached critical mass and so was sold to Google, which then shut it down and eventually released Google+


Google+ is an excellent social network because it allows photographers and conversationalists to converse without the hype, without the cult of personality and without sensationalism. In other words it allows people to have conversations that increase their understanding and awareness of current affairs. 


With the demise of Google+ we will lose this sea of tranquility and be reduced to go to miasmic networks such as Twitter and Facebook where the cult of personality, sensationalism and doctored newsfeeds prevent us from seeing what the people we want to keep in touch with are posting. 


People argue that we could shift to Mewe, that we could shift to pluspora or other social networks but there are two issues. The first of these is that every jump from one platform to another takes weeks or months to feel familiar. The second issue is that when you’ve been jumping from web community to web community for decades like I have you get fatigued. I don’t want to spend weeks or months sorting through noise to get a crisp signal. I want to log in, skim for a few minutes, contribute, and then continue with my day. Joining a new social network would require a big investment of time and in three or four years that network may be sunset anyway. 


That’s where WordPress comes in. WordPress is social media. People with a lot to say write blog posts that are hundreds of words long, with images, videos included, maps and sometimes graphs. Blogging is about connecting people confident with how they spend their time online. 


Facebook and Twitter are social networks used by normal people who think they are wasting their time and lives by socialising in a virtual environment. Blogging communities are a place where people are committed to their desire to communicate in long form. 


I am using the explore tab on WordPress’s app and commenting on posts. I am reverting to blogging. I like forcing myself to write long form posts, of developing my writing skills and my creative abilities. 

Easy track creation with Komoot
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Easy track creation with Komoot

Byrichard

Komoot is an app based on socialising through sports. The sports are cycling, mountain biking, bike touring, hiking and running. It integrates well with Garmin and allows you to track activities from your mobile phone or import GPX, Fit and other files from other brands. It also allows you to create your own tracks ahead of an activity as well as plan it for a specific day and time. 


Sports


Running and hiking are two distinct categories with no differentiating between hiking, walking, nordic or rambling. Running does not have sub-categories for trail running, road running or other variants. Cycling seems to be the sport they are most focused on. They differentiate between road riding, mountain biking and touring. 


Creating routes


Creating a route on the website is easy. You can choose between a linear route or a loop. You can select which sport is for. I tried creating two or three walking routes as well as two or three cycling routes based on walks I have done in the past. You mark point A and point B and then add the in between points. I created the 100km route I tried from Nyon to the Col de Marchairuz, around the Lac de Joux and then down via St Cergue to Nyon. It automatically gives you ascent information, gradient, an average speed and an estimated route time as well as level of expertise. 


It provides difficulty, estimated time of completion, total distance, estimated average speed, ascent and descent. With this information it is easier to assess whether it is in within our capabilities. 


It provides a profile for the ride, with the ability to mouse over each section and even to highlight a segment you are interested in knowing more about. 


Finally it gives you the type of road as well as the surfaces. You can see whether to expect traffic, pedestrians, farmers and more. By knowing the type of road surface you can evaluate whether your tires are suitable or not. 


The same is true of hiking tracks. I did this specific hike in about 5 and a half hours. I did start in Eysins and skip the summit. I went via a col on the right rather than going to La Dôle. 


With hiking trails it provides the type of road surface you can expect to find along the way. If you’re looking for a dirt track away from traffic you may decide to skip certain sections. It’s a shame that it doesn’t specify whether sections are main roads or agricultural paths. 


The route is colour coded according to difficulty. Easy sections are in green and  harder sections as well as their gradient are highlighted in orange or red. As you can see sections of this trail were steep. 


Google Maps offers some of the same functionality but you do not get so much detail and it is not integrated within a mobile app or gps units like Komoot is. Finally at the bottom of the route you get weather information. This can be useful if you plan to do an activity in a few days. 


Planning a group activity


A feature I would like to see on this app is the ability to create a group event or activity. I would like to be able to take a route I have prepared and decide on a time and date when a group of people could come together to enjoy a hike or bike ride. If and when this is included it would be a one stop solution for people to meet up and enjoy activities together. 

Cycling stings

Byrichard

Yesterday I was stung by a wasp while cycling and when I tried to remove the stinger I couldn’t. I was in pain and almost stopped cycling. I was in distress as a bus passed on a main road. I was on an agricultural path by some apple orchards. I stopped where the agricultural road reached the main road. 


It’s almost twenty four hours later and my lower lip and one of my cheeks have swelled up. A few weeks ago I had a similar incident with a bee but I was able to remove the stinger while cycling and my quick action prevented too much poison from being pumped into my lower lip. When that incident occurred I was surprised not to have any swelling. 


In previous years I have been stung twice to my right leg and at least once to the stomach. I had no adverse reaction. Being stung when you’re riding a bike or scooter is normal. Usually the windshield on the scooter protects your body so that’s where bugs get splattered. I often hear when bumble bees and other larger insects hit my helmet. There’s that little “poc” sound on almost every ride. 


If you look at car radiators, windshields and side mirrors you will see a graveyard of insects. This year I have seen flying swarms of small insects and I’ve tried not to have my mouth open by accident when going through them. 


I am tempted to get a face mask, to protect my mouth. I already protect my eyes on every ride for this very reason. A face mask would be a logical next step. 

Second thoughts on E-bikes

Byrichard

Yesterday I rode an e-bike over 5km and played with the eco, touring, sport and turbo modes. I experimented with the gears and I experimented with a variety of gradients and surfaces. Through this trial I got to understand how e-bikes work. 


Gaining momentum


E-bikes are great for helping you get up to 25 kilometres an hour and after that, if you have the strength then you can ride the bike at over 25 kilometres per hour for as long as you last. When you start to get tired the engine will kick in again when you slip down to below 25 kilometres per hour and assist you for the rest of the journey.


Bosch engines are gentle, they assist you from a standing start, following your pedal force to gradually get you up to 25 kilometres per hour and above. Once you reach 25 kilometres per hour and above the engine cuts out and it’s a normal bike. 


Weight and gearing


E-bikes can easily weigh 23kg or more so having the right gears is important. I tried riding an e-bike without changing gears for the first few minutes and I was able to move it along. When I started to shift gears I saw how light the e-bike felt. This is important for uphill segments if the battery dies. 


Two types of engine


There are two types of engines. There are gentle engines such as Bosch, to give you a more pleasant cycling feel and then you have other engines, such as Yamaha and others that are meant to be more forceful. In a sports supermarket, I tried another e-bike and that engine was punchier in that you pedalled a quarter of a crank rotation and it threw you to 25km per hour. The latter option felt more like driving a scooter than riding a bike. It defeats the purpose. 


Summary


E-bikes assist you in getting to 25 kilometres an hour and if you’re a strong rider the engine will sit in the background and kick in again when you get tired. Although the bike’s engine is limited to 25km per hour it is not like a car or scooter. The speed limit is for the engine, not your pedalling power. If you’re a strong cyclist you can easily reach a higher speed. This implies that on downhill segments you could reach your usual speeds of 50+km per hour. 


As a next step I would like to do a full range test, from Nyon to Geneva and back along the roads I take on a bike. Those are undulating and there are moments that get exposed to strong headwinds. I would also ride the route du Lac. If it survives those routes I would be confident to replace my petrol driven scooter with an e-bike. 


I could opt for a 45 kilometre per hour bike but I’ve found that I love my 2-5 hour bike rides so an e-bike that assists up to 25km/h is sufficient.