Day 63 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – A 15 Kilometre Loop

Day 63 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – A 15 Kilometre Loop

Byrichard

Today I walked a 15-kilometre loop because I saw people walking two abreast and decided to retrace my steps a short distance before trying a new bifurcation. By the end of this walk, my legs were starting to get tired. I walked non stop for over two hours before a quick stop at a petrol station to get some drinks before heading home.


Before going on my walk I finished the CSS course on Linkedin Learning before starting another one on HTML. It’s not that I need to learn about HTML so much as I have a desire to complement what I already know.


After passive learning I re-worked some more pages on the HTML part of my website, adding CSS to two or three pages. As a result of what I have learned over the last two or three weeks doing the same thing as I did for the index page for another directory took half an hour or less. What I learned is sticking in my memory. I still cut and paste, but the process is much faster.


Links from HTML Essential Training by Jen Simmons


The more I look up and learn, the more ideas I have for how to modernise my website. For ages I wanted to keep my website as a museum of what the web used to be but as I made pages mobile friendly that desire to keep things the same has altered and now I want to modernise it.


From a visitor point of view this may be a waste of time, as certain parts of the website have little to no traffic. This doesn’t matter, because in the grand scheme of things every page I modernise gives me experience in dealing with CSS, Javascript, navigation design and more. I may be slow on the first pages but as I work my way through the website my efficiency will go up, and with that so will my employability.


We constantly need to learn skills and working on a website, rather than browsing social media, is a great way of doing so. As I looked through Flickr galleries I saw that some people have images of people re-enacting Roman soldiers and other people have images of Rome as it looks today. I could easily breath life back into that part of the website by contacting people and getting permission to share their images.


I’m glad I am working on my website as a project again. It is effectively filling my time, encouraging me to learn more, and getting me ready for a line of work I enjoy.


See you tomorrow.

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Day 61 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – World Community Grids Pandemic work units.

Byrichard

World Community Grids OpenPandemic work units are now ready. With your laptop or desktop, you can help find a cure for COVID-19.



As a World Community Grid volunteer, you download a secure software program to your computer. And when your computer is not using its full computing power, it will automatically run a simulated experiment in the background which will help predict the effectiveness of a particular chemical compound as a possible treatment for COVID-19.

Research: 
OpenPandemics – COVID-19: Project Overview


Downloading and installing the software and creating an account is quick and easy. Once you have done this, and once the application is running your laptop or desktop will help in the effort. It costs us little effort and we can still use the computer as usual.



The idea is not a new one. My laptops and desktops have been contributing to such efforts for decades now. I was introduced to this concept back in the late 90s to early 20th century. My first glimpse of this was the Seti@Home research project back in 2002.


With Grid computing, you don’t need to purchase or develop supercomputers. Instead, you rely on a networked cluster of computers to work together to process data. Instead of requesting and waiting for slots to become available on supercomputers scientists have access to thousands of machines to help them work through the data. Every work unit is worked on by at least two or more computers and verified.



World Community Grid has 650,000 individual contributers and 460 organisations helping in the effort. They have contributed to 31 research projects to date. This has resulted in 35 peer reviewed papers.


A graphic representation of the candidate being evaluated.


Over the years my computers have contributed 356 days of computing power. They have generated over a million points for mapping cancer markers. They have contributed to the Microbiome Immunity Project, FightAIDS@Home Phase 2, OpenZika, Outsmart Ebola Together, Genome Comparison, Help Defeat Cancer, Fight Aids@Home, and Smash Childhood Cancer.


My contributions so far.





Although Folding@Home gave people the power to help in the search to beat COVID-19 sooner I prefer the World Community Grid application because it runs in the background without me hearing the fans running. When you’re using a laptop that you want to keep using for years this is important.


I will leave you with this short video.





See you tomorrow.

Day 60 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – The Sixtieth Day of Solitude.

Day 60 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – The Sixtieth Day of Solitude.

Byrichard

It’s the sixtieth day of solitude for some of us and if we look at Twitter we see that people in other countries are suffering. One person spoke of the dark dog whilst another expressed distress. A third expresses another emotion. Around the world we see people suffering and trying to cope in their own unique ways.


I went for my daily walk but I wasn’t fully motivated so it was a relatively short circuit. Just 7.65 kilometres according to my SUUNTO Spartan HR Sports Wrist, Black. It’s the watch I’ve been using for at least three or four years by now. I am no longer tracking with the Apple watch as I was tired of deleting duplicates.


There is a cruel irony in society going from soft lockdown to rebooting in safe mode because our consumerist habits can return and crowds are re-emerging but as single people living alone we are stil not allowed within two meters of others unless there is plexiglass or we’re on a video call.


I saw a large crowd of people all standing together. I write this as a joke. The “crowd” was a cluster of toddlers at a kindergarten. They were going out of their classroom to play on the swings outside. I didn’t linger as I saw this as I was starting my walk.


During most of this walk I felt warm enough to open two layers of clothing. In theory I would have been happy in a t-shirt while I was sheltered from the rain. I wasn’t rained on but the wind was active so when I was exposed to it I closed my layers.


I passed over the motorway and it’s back to pre-pandemic levels. People are once again using their cars as much as before. It’s a shame that despite the short re-starting of society the use of the car is so quick to grow in amplitude.


In the US the pandemic is affecting farmers. According to the New York Times meat plant closures mean pigs are gassed or shot instead. Some slaughterhouses are closed so there is no one to process the meat in some cases and in other cases the animals have become too big for the slaughterhouses to deal with them. Plenty of animals are dying needlessly as a result.


On the lighter side of the news people are experiencing flute solos at Stuttgart Airport. It’s interesting that they would choose to do this. It reminds me of an industry, although only theoretically.


The Economist wrote a column titled Casual sex is out, companionship is in but this column is boring because it looks mainly at dating apps and the cardinal sin of dating apps is that it forces lonely people to know who is interested for exorbitant amounts of money. They speak about video dating but the best app I played with was Seesmic back in the day. I’m still in contact with many of those people. Seesmic was as effective as Twitter for creating new friendships and relationships, back in the day.


The closest we have to online flirting in an open society is Tik Tok. On Tik Tok you see that we can play, flirt, and collaborate together in a way that is similar to what we did on Seesmic back in the day. During this pandemic Tik Tok may be the only place for us to have fun. Last night I did a planking duet, and I see a few more duets that tempt me. We will see if I get round to them.


I really need to play and laugh. Tik Tok made me laugh out loud several times yesterday. It is an oasis of companionship in a sea of solitude. As I mentioned at the start of this post, plenty of people are unhappy and struggling to cope during this pandemic so we must do what we can to endure it, and to come out ofthe other side in a good mental state.


I’ll leave you with a video about cooking Lasagna and cake in a van for a change of ideas.





A Demain.

Day 59 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – Thunder As I Got Home
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Day 59 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – Thunder As I Got Home

Byrichard

For once I walked in the drizzle, rather than the rain but I could hear thunder as I got home. I have almost reading Thirst: 2600 Miles to Home during this walk. Poetically I was listening to her about walking with a storm on its way whilst a storm was thundering over the Jura.


The rain became heavy just as I got close to home so today I am not drenched to the bone, and in need of a change of clothes like yesterday. I started today’s walk by running for the first two and a half kilometres, using the Guardian’s running podcast week three, for the fourth time. I didn’t run last week and I prefer to give my legs time to acclimate to running before pushing too much.


I spent most of my waking hours today working on the website. I’m still working on the front page and I think it’s almost ready to go live. It’s built with CSS, a little javascript, and grids. I have it behaving as I want it to behave. It looks good, whether viewed on a “desktop” or a mobile phone.


What I learned while working on the front page has helped. When I was making web pages mobile-friendly a week or two ago was bare bones and I didn’t change much. Now when I re-worked three or four pages today I used CSS where I could. I replaced tables with CSS and with pages where I had lists I used CSS to enhance lists. There is one page I still need to re-work, but I need to think about how to do something interesting.


See you tomorrow.

Day 58 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – Writing For Future Generations Now.
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Day 58 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – Writing For Future Generations Now.

Byrichard

I’m writing for future generations now. As I looked at the stats for the most recent posts i see that readership is low. I’m tempted to start writing about something else as a result. In two or three weeks if we’re still seeing low numbers of new cases I might.


The biggest change since two days ago is that when I went to the shops I saw that InterDiscount and other places are open. Restaurants are open too. I saw some people in these places but without counting.


Inspiration to write usually comes from meeting people and having conversations but it’s at least 58 days since I met someone new and had a different conversation so it’s hard to explore new ideas.


The CSS front page I’ve been working on for the past three or four days is almost ready to be shared. I still need to tweak three or four things. I’m happy about this. When I replaced the time I spent on social media with playing with CSS I gave myself a great opportunity to learn two or three new skills. I was afraid that I would be confused and lost but so far I’ve found the opposite to be true. I’ve found it relatively easy.


The biggest challenge is getting the content to be desktop and mobile-friendly so every experiment I run has to look good on both. So far this has been a good experience. It’s something that I haven’t done, possibly since social media came along, and distracted us. It’s a shame that social media didn’t grow in quality of conversations but it has benefited my drive to learn something new.


We have to keep upskilling, and upskilling by working on a website is good, because we learn skills that others can see and assess within seconds. The more time I spend tweaking the first page the better it will look, and the more knowledge I will come away with.


See you tomorrow for day 59. We’re just two days away from two months without being within two meters of another person.

Day 57 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – Another Walk In The Rain.

Byrichard

Walking in heavy rain for two and a half hours doesn’t make much sense. You don’t see much. The more time you spend outside the more of you is wet, and by the time you get home you’re cold and in need of warming up.


It’s day 57, the 11th of May. In theory Switzerland has rebooted in safe mode and we can start returning to normal life. I don’t know whether the shops or other places were busy because I didn’t go into any shops.


View this post on Instagram

My daily walk.

A post shared by Richard Azia (@richardazia) on

Day 56 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – A Ride Towards Storm Clouds

Day 56 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – A Ride Towards Storm Clouds

Byrichard

Today I had a ride towards storm clouds. I was cycling in the sun but as I looked towards Geneva I could see that it was dark and grey. I questioned whether to turn around or whether to keep going. It started to rain but I was reaching the half way point.


I didn’t turn around. I continued going and I passed families or groups on their bikes going slower than me. I flew by them and then I headed down towards the lake before turning right and going through a forest road. On this forest road, I saw children and parents on the road so I had to slow down as I passed them.


During this ride, I avoided passing through Versoix because it’s unpleasant. I prefer being in the countryside. I think that I spotted two people on bikes playing Pokemon Go. I assume this because they went to where I know there is an Ingress portal but it did not change.


I saw what I think was a young child and two parents start to head up a steep hill that I have found difficult to go up after some rides and thought “If that child makes it up that hill I will be impressed.” I didn’t slow down to see whether this was the case or not.


I haven’t cycled through Nyon or any big cities yet, because I don’t feel comfortable doing that for the moment. The countryside still feels like the safer place to be.

Day 55 Of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – Long Horned Cows

Day 55 Of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – Long Horned Cows

Byrichard

Long-Horned cows are a rare treat. We usually see short-horned or even de-horned cows in Switzerland. To see longhorn cow is a treat. I took a tiny detour from my walk to get some pictures. I have walked by the field a few times before seeing them close enough to the fence to consider taking pictures again.


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One of them started to approach the fence so I moved back. I later noticed that some calves are in this field too.


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We are now two days away from the 11th of May when shops will re-open and life gets one step closer to being “normal” again. We are going to be in a dangerous phase of the pandemic for two reasons. The first reason is that people aren’t going to be as careful about who they come in contact with so the virus will have a new opportunity to spread within small communities.


The second reason is that I see people driving two or more hours to do activities in the mountains rather than staying locally. By combining the two the virus may grab the opportunity to start spreading again.


I am not critical of the government. I am critical of the people who are taking liberties that don’t yet make sense. In theory I could be climbing Monday afternoon but I won’t, because I think it would be wise to wait to to three weeks before enjoying such luxuries.


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The best sport that we can do for the environment, and for each other’s safety is cycling, whether on mountain bikes like these two people. or on road bikes like others. By cycling we are staying within a three hour radius of home, where our range is limited by our physical health.


It makes sense to continue enjoying what the local area has to offer. By now we should have seen that there are plenty of things to do locally. This is especially true for people who have experienced the pandemic in Switzerland.





Did you find some interesting walks by staying local?

Day 54 Of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – The Via Ferrata Season Resumes on Monday
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Day 54 Of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – The Via Ferrata Season Resumes on Monday

Byrichard

The Via Ferrata Season resumes on Monday with La Via Farinetta reopening. This news came via the Via Farinetta Saillon official page, as seen with the Facebook embed below.




Bonne nouvelle! La Via sera ouverte à partir ce lundi 11 mai ??

Néanmoins nous vous rendons attentifs sur les instructions des autorités.

N’hésitez pas à nous partager vos photos.
Prenez soin de vous!

Posted by Via Farinetta Saillon Officiel on Thursday, 7 May 2020


I’m happy with the news. I won’t rush to climb though. I’d rather wait for two or three weeks and see what happens. If no one gets sick then we can start climbing again. If Décathlon does open I can get gloves that cover fingertips to be safe.


I have altered the route I usually walk because cows are in one of the fields I like to walk through. The alternate route requires walking along a road, so it’s less pleasant because there are a greater number of people to avoid.


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In the picture above you would never know that there is a path that you can walk along. It’s only because one day I saw people walking from the other direction that I decided to investigate. If you walk closer you see that the gap is large enough for people to pass, as in the featured image. Even when you know where it is it’s easy to miss.


It’s VE day, and the poppies are out.


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I saw a flower I wasn’t familiar with and when I looked closer to take pictures I noticed that these were strawberry plants. The season for strawberries is almost here.


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Strawberry flowers


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I didn’t eat any because they’re not ripe. They’re still green, and they’re on a farm, not wild. For wild ones we have to wait until we get to the mountains again.