Entering Twenty One Degree Water

Entering Twenty One Degree Water

Byrichard

For most people over 20 degrees air temperature and twenty one degree water is okay. I struggle. I like water to be warm. I like to be warm before I go in. I like to know that when I get out I will still be warm.


Today with a little effort I managed to convince myself to swim. I didn’t swim much. I swam three hundred meters. Usually I would swim further. During the pandemic I did not swim or climb so my arms are not as strong as they were.


We have weakened during this pandemic and another wave is coming. We are about to have the fifth Swiss wave and other countries will be going through the same thing. People do not understand how pandemics work. They were never curious enough to find out.


We will see when and if I try an electric bike. At the moment I have two or three routes to experiment with. Anything that can be done alone is pandemic friendly.


The pandemic has changed what feels like a reward. I am happy just to walk, on a daily basis. I don’t feel the need to do more. What would have been rewarding pandemic does not exist today.


People say they want the pandemic to end but they do nothing to precipitate the end. They just play the victims, without considering that they are active participants. People are not assuming the responsibility they have.

Another Walk By The Mediterranean.

Another Walk By The Mediterranean.

Byrichard

One treat of being in Spain is that some people do wear masks when walking outdoors. You are normal for wearing a mask.



In Switzerland you are looked at as if you are eccentric or absurd. It is nice not to be looked at as a curiousity. It is nice to have the security of a mask without feeling like a freak.


A paradox of mask wearing in Spain is that it’s hot. In theory this would make it less appealing to wear a mask but it has no effect. People still want to be safe.



Spain During A Pandemic
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Spain During A Pandemic

Byrichard

People wear masks as they walk and do waiters. This is nice. It’s nice to see people wearing masks during a pandemic. It’s nice not to feel like an outlier. It’s nice not to feel eccentric for mask wearing.



I went for my first swim in at least two years. I didn’t go in the sea but in a pool. I haven’t forgotten how to swim despite not swimming for years.


I feel tired from yesterday’s drive but by tomorrow or the next day I should have recovered and then I can try something different.


Twelve Hours Of Focus

Twelve Hours Of Focus

Byrichard

Today I drove for twelve hours with hardly any breaks and finished two books. Twilight of Democracy and Almost Human.


These were good books to read during a drive because they are both entertaining and informative. They are also well read. I think my day of rest yesterday helped too.


12 hrs, three countries, 1200+kilometres and I felt comfortable almost the entire time. I did see a scene in a cafe that reminded me that I am tired of solitude, but pandemics are not a good time to break out of solitude.


If the drive felt like this more often then I would make the trip more often. This is how I expect a long drive to feel.


A Queue of Tractors Without Drivers

A Queue of Tractors Without Drivers

Byrichard

Today I saw a queue of tractors without drivers. Tractors with trailers full of beat were parked by the on loading dock at the railway siding. There is a machine. The tractors come up to the machine, back, and then start to pour the sugar beet into it. The machine then transports the beets from the receptacle along conveyor belts before they are dumped into a train wagon, ready for transport by rail to where they are needed. I filmed it a few days ago but did not get around to editing the sequence.


Tractors and the train wagons
Tractors and the train wagons


Autumnal colours are here. Some trees are further along than others with their reds, oranges and others. Wind or rain is needed to remove the leaves from the trees, as a last step.


Autumn red leaves on a tree
Autumn red leaves on a tree


I am leaving Autumnal Switzerland behind, and going back to summer, by going to Spain. People say that they miss the sun, but for me the sun is not absent at the moment. We have the sun every day. I am taking a break because a, it’s the right time to and because a change of context will be refreshing. I have spent two years walking around in circles. I need to go a little further, and find some other circuit walks. It will also give me something to document in blog posts.

Thoughts On Long Drives

Thoughts On Long Drives

Byrichard

The most I drove was 3600 kilometres in four days. I went to Western France, Barcelona, back to Western France, and then back to Switzerland. It was an average of 800 kilometres a day. About two or three hours from home I was so tired of driving that I stopped at an empty motorway stop and just zoned out for ten minutes or so before continuing to drive.


Sports and Driving


I like driving, and I like long journeys by car. I know that they can be tiring, either due to traffic, or because of the entire day. The Leukerbad Via Ferrata drives were tiring because I woke at 3am to get to the destination at 8am for the first ride up, and then climb for five to seven hours, before driving home. That is a demanding day. Eventually I booked hotel nights. That changed the experience. Spa and meal with people after sports is nicer.


I have driven to and from Spain several times, in a single hop. It is tiring. It is hours of focus. Hours of sitting still. Hours of staring. This isn’t your two hour drive from Geneva to a mountain chalet. This is 13 hours of driving. You can get up early, to finish early, or you can get up at a normal time, to finish later, or you can get up later to finish in the middle of the night.


Traffic and Snow


A few years ago I said a sad goodbye to a friend in London, before getting stuck at Blackfriar’s tunnel, heading to the English channel. I think I spent three or four hours in that traffic jam. What was funny in this case is that I got to France late, and with it snowing. When I drove across the Jura there was a layer of snow and I had to go fast enough to have momentum, but not so much as to lose control of the car. I really didn’t want to get stuck. I got home very early the next day, but I don’t remember feeling tired. On that drive adrenaline keeped me awake.


Avoiding Busy Days


Sunday could be easy, or it could be hard. I have no idea. it’s the first road trip with the current car, so the experience is new. If the day of travel made no difference traffic wise, then I think I would set off today or tomorrow. It’s because it does, that I am dedicated to drive one day of the week.


This is my first trip out of Switzerland for two years, due to the pandemic. I am always excited to have the freedom to drive for hours in a row in a single day. I am looking forward to the opportunity. It will feel good to set off and drive.


Apple Play


For the first time I can play with Apple Car play, and this time it isn’t for a five or ten minute trip to the shops and back. It’s a thirteen hour trip. Plenty of time to listen to audiobooks, maybe podcasts, and to think. I will test to see whether the has 800 kilometres of range on a single fill or whether that range is shorter. We will see if I make it to the border without refueling. With current road conditions it should take 7hrs to the border and half a day to get close to my destination.


Well Rested


Although I like the idea of getting up at 3am to drive for 12 hours I know that, driving alone, this is not a good idea. If I had someone to share the drive with then I could. I think waking up a little later, at a time that is within my normal time to wake up will yield a safer and more pleasant driving experience.


If I wake at 3am then I could have a siesta around lunchtime, before continuing the drive. This is sub-optimal. A 15 minute break, when I feel fatigued will be enough. Usually that’s when the refuelling stops are, to recharge before the next leg.


And Finally


This blog post could be more eloquent. I count it as practice. Eventually I will find an inspired voice, more frequently.

Tap Water, Hollow Fibres disagree with Calcar and a Barrel According to WaterMinder

Tap Water, Hollow Fibres disagree with Calcar and a Barrel According to WaterMinder

Byrichard

Today the Service Industriel de Nyon, SI Nyon, sent an e-mail saying that tap water is one thousand times more environmentally friendly than bottled water. Bottled water is sold at between 20 to 90 centimes per litre and tap water is sold at about 0.1 centimes per litre. It is 200 to 900 times cheaper.


Depuis maintenant cinq ans, ce déficit hydrique se répète et influence notablement le niveau de la nappe phréatique et le régime des sources. Les étiages enregistrés se sont avérés une fois de plus très bas durant l’été et l’automne. Ainsi, en 2020, les sources n’ont participé qu’à hauteur de 48% de la consommation. Les apports de la SAPAN se sont révélés très élevés (34%). La nappe phréatique a également été très sollicitée (18%).

SI Nyon: À propos de l’eau potable dans la région de Nyon | SI Nyon


In 2020 4 million metres cubed of drinking water were distributed via the network. thirty four percent of that water came from the lake, fourty eight from springs, and eighteen percent was taken from the water table. SI Nyon says the same thing as I do. They wrote “les étiages se sont avérés une fois de plus très bas durant l’été…”. Etiage is water level in French. I had to look it up. I don’t remember this word. In English it is baseflow, or drought flow: Baseflow – Wikipedia.


Calcar, the Sawyer Squeeze and BeFree


I have now played with three nanotube filters and each one of them has the same problem. If you run Swiss tap water through them, and then do not use them for a few weeks they get blocked. Hollow fibre might be good in soft water, but in hard water, as in Switzerland, you’re better off with the Katadyn Hiker Pro or similar technology. That’s why I have upgraded my water bottles to wide mouth options. I can use them to either carry dirty water, or fill them, without needing three hands.


Although the Katadyn Befree is 20 to 30 CHF less, if you need to replace them every year, then it makes sense to get the Hiker Pro, or higher end water filtration system. I tried backflushing the Sawyer squeeze but the flow is still bad. Filters that last for as long as you use them daily are great, if you’re hiking for months in a row, but filters that work consistently, despite occasional use, are better.


A WaterMinder Barrel


According to the WaterMinder app I drank over a barrel of fluids. I believe that to be around 159 litres. My current streak is 23 days of drinking an average of 2.62 litres per day. I am hydrated.


And Finally


We are on day 573 of this pandemic and apparently people have not heard about the vaccination according to at least one individual. How? We’re in a pandemic. The entire world has stopped. How can you not have heard about the vaccine? How isolated are you? How disconnected?


I hope to be more inspired tomorrow. I might be in the pre-trip duldrums for the next two or three days.


JSON-LD and a Walk

JSON-LD and a Walk

Byrichard

A conventional tech blogger would usually just write about JSON-LD and completely ignore the fact that they went on a walk. I like to combine the two. JSON-LD, short for JSON Linked Document is an agreement for certain data fields to be used for specific purposes. The idea is to standardise terms within a database to make the sharing of data easier.


When you work with databases and data it is important to define what the schema will be. A schema is like a template but with data fields. It is an agreement, or requirement to have specific data about a product, asset or other.


For example for a book you will have


  • Title
  • Author
  • Date published
  • ISBN
  • Publisher
  • Location Published
  • Price
  • Description
  • Synopsis
  • Language and more.


A schema ensures that all fields are entered. This ensures that useful information is either A)Not forgotten and B)All entries look the same on a webpage. If you think I’m verbose look at Schema.org’s entry for book fields. By following these instructions data is interchangeable between all websites, without the need to re-map data


JSON-LD is a lightweight Linked Data format. It is easy for humans to read and write. It is based on the already successful JSON format and provides a way to help JSON data interoperate at Web-scale. JSON-LD is an ideal data format for programming environments, REST Web services, and unstructured databases such as Apache CouchDB and MongoDB.

JSON-LD org: https://json-ld.org/


A Use Case


When I worked as a media asset manager we had to think about how to map data between a media asset management tool and a CMS. This required finding a way to map the data so that it would be compatible between databases. If done well databases can feed themselves, without the need for humans to do the tedious work of data entry, especially when thousands of data entries with dozens of fields each are involved.


On a smaller scale it means that we can create a webpage, setup a schema, add it to the top of the page, and search engines will know what the page contains, more efficiently. On WordPress it works automatically once you add the right plugin.


Experiment with JSON-LD


If you’d like to experiment with JSON-LD then you can try this site. It provides a quick way to enter data, and see the resultant JSON-LD data, which you can then paste in a web page.


The Walk


Today I saw quite a few contrails in the sky as I walked between villages. The weather is windy, but as usual the sun is out. I am going through my usual alternate route these days. It takes me through houses, rather than along the road. It is always worth updating routes, although I think that the new route might be shorter. I see that the route I took today is around 3 kilometres shorter than another. I cheated myself of an extra half hour of walking. It gives me more time to do other things.


A Happy Pan – When Oil Smiled

A Happy Pan – When Oil Smiled

Byrichard

Yesterday I had a happy pan, when the oil smiled at me. I didn’t intend for it to become a smiley face. I poured in the oil as I always do before cooking. That’s when my imagination thought it saw something. Yep, a face. I was amused enough, and I thought that my imagination was seeing something clear enough for others to recognise, so I took pictures.


A smiley face made of oil
A smiley face made of oil


This face came too early. If I had seen this on Halloween then it would have been perfect. This is a demonstration of how chaos theory can make anything happen. Alternatively if enough monkeys like me pour oil into pans we eventually get a face. People like this cooking oil. Five people have told me that they like this brand of Greek oil.


In other news Google says that I have travelled 3700 kilometres this year, between walking, cycling and the car. I think that most of it was by foot though. This is day 285 of 2021. 3700 / 285 came to around 13 kilometres a day. I think this proves how local our lives have become during this pandemic. 13 kilometres is easy to walk in a day, especially at a conference or other event, but also when walking to and from work, for some, or daily walks for other. My first reaction had been “how did I manage that, this must be wrong. Upon reflection, this seems correct.