Yet Another Sunny Day

Yet Another Sunny Day

Byrichard

Today I looked at two of the masks I used over summer and they are both bleached by the sun. So is my hat. I normally expect things in Spain to be sun bleached, not Switzerland. The reason is simple. First, it never ever rains, and even clouds are rare today, and second, I spend an hour and a half outdoors a day walking. Plenty of time for my things to get sun bleached.


If you’re an extrovert you could go out into the street and ask people “Is the covid virus airborne” they would probably either say that they don’t know or that it isn’t. The second introvert option is just to observe people. See how many people wear their masks as moustaches, how many of them wear them as neckerchiefs, how many people observe proper social distancing. If these methods are how you determine whether people know that COVID-19 is airborne, then the answer is “very few”.


It makes you question whether self-isolation is justified. It doesn’t seem to be, because not that many people are falling sick now. There is one detail. The point of self-isolation, and the point of eradicating a disease, is that you don’t wait for things to seem safe, to resume normal life. You wait until they are. 2200 people fell sick this weekend. That’s a lot of people. That’s 733 a day. That’s an infection rate of one person every two minutes.


We are at the trough of a wave, but there is every chance that another crest is coming, and none of the barrier gestures are in place at the moment. If the virus has an opportunity it will spread quickly between communities with current behaviours as they are.


Sunflowers And the Mont Blanc


Due to the pandemic I am still going for my daily walks in the countryside. I go along roads with less human and dog traffic. I find that if I go on routes with people out for their walks they walk side by side and make it impossible to pass them without entering their safe space. I can and do wear a mask but when you cross people once or twice in 20 minutes the mask is not justified, and you need the sunshine. I walk in the countryside. If I was in town the mask would either be on, or I’d be keeping three or four meters between myself and others.


I might be eccentric, but the pandemic is over one and a half years old, so I have had time for pandemic habits to become automatic.


I had to stop walking at two moments during this walk. Tractors had to turn around. To do so they had to drive over the road I was about to walk on. I prefer not to have a tractor with seeding equipment too close to me. It is interesting to watch them as they work different fields, with different tools, at different times of the year. Daily, I see what they’re up to.


Of Raclette and Goulash

Byrichard

One day I prepared Raclette and whtin a few days I prepared Goulash. I find the contrast between the two recipes amusing. One takes 15-20 minutes to prepare because of the need to cook potatoes for that long, and the other takes half an hour to prepare and then another hour or two to cook. One is just cheese, pepper and bread, the other is bread, pepper, tomatoes, potatoes, meat, paprika and more.


I googled Goulash on Wikipedia. It’s interesting that originally goulash was made from meat that was dried in the sun before being stored in animal stomachs. When it was time for that food to be eaten it was rehydrated. The practice of dehydrating food, before travelling by horse, foot or other means is an old habit of humans. Thru-hikers are not the first to do this. Neither are the various militaries.


Its origin traces back to the 9th century to stews eaten by Hungarian shepherds.[6] At that time, the cooked and flavored meat was dried with the help of the sun and packed into bags produced from sheep’s stomachs, needing only water to make it into a meal

Goulash: Wikipedia


I walked one of my older routes today. It’s a nice walk but the problem with dangerous car driving persists. Instead of driving at a speed that would be polite and respectful when crossing a pedestrian they drive at the speed limit. This makes me feel unsafe. Society likes to say that we shouldn’t walk along roads, but if you want to get from village to village there are not that many options, especially during a pandemic where couples and groups walk side by side.


I stopped walking those routes because I was tired of feeling endangered during every walk. It is also for this reason that I cycle less. Breaking an arm also helped, and being in the middle of a pandemic. These are conducive to keeping some habits rather than others.


Weekly Most Used Water Bottles


This week I used the Sig Shield One and Camelbak eddy+ a lot. I took the Sigg Original with me on daily walks. The 600ml eddy+ is the most practical bottle out of the three. You can drink from it while doing something else. It takes little to no focus. The Shield one is a close second. The Sigg Original requires more concentration because the top needs to be unscrewed and screwed back on for every drink. Another problem is that half a litre of water is not like half a litre of coke. You can drink half a litre of water in a few seconds, but you sip coke.


I like going for daily walks with the 600ml Eddy+ or the Sigg Original 500ml. Every village has a fountain, so if you run low on water you can easily refill. My favourite is the 600ml Eddy+ for now. It is the easiest to use clean, and carry. I didn’t “need” to buy the other two bottles but pandemic curiousity, when you see things online, rather than in person, got the better of me.


All of the containers I bought are now easier to clean. One is made of steel so cleaning is easy, a second just goes in the dishwasher so I don’t even think about it, and the third has a wide mouth opening that makes cleaning and inspecting it easy.


I still think I need two 1L water bottles for summer hikes, when we’re out of pandemic, and reverting to normal life again.

Whether Or Not To Tweet
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Whether Or Not To Tweet

Byrichard

Sometimes we have to ask whether or not to tweet. We have to ask this question because social media is seen by many, in common culture, as an addiction. Everything that is perceived negatively by society suffers, whether justifiably or not. The same is true of cyclists.


In Switzerland there is an ad campaign that says that cyclists are responsible for half of accidents involving them. The truth is that sixty eight percent of accidents involving cyclists are caused by cars. That’s two thirds of accidents. This means that without cars, cyclists would have one third of the current number of accidents. The discourse needs to change, to favour cyclists, not to vilify them.


The same is true of social media. Since the 90s people have said the world wide web is bad, social networks are bad, you don’t know who you’re talking to and more. In the end advertisers and investors seem to be the greatest danger that web users face. Social networks are made, or broken, by the people who take control, and take a conversational social network, into a revenue stream flooded with adverts. YouTube and Instagram are prime examples of this. Facebook is another.


The problem with social media websites is that they see advertisers as the clients, rather than users. Instagram was a nice social network, until Facebook bought it. It was usable until ads were added after every fourth post. I then left. The community went from friends sharing with friends to strangers sharing with strangers for memes. The personal aspect was destroyed.


People like to ask questions like “Are drugs worse, or FaceBook, and although it may seem like innocent fun it isn’t. There is a cultural expectation that social media is bad, so people do not invest themselves as they would, if not for the negative perception.


We are in the middle of a pandemic that we know is airborne. We know that masks, hepa filters, air flow and open windows are open. Despite this we do not stigmatise people for not doing everything they know will minimise risk, to socialise. If you’re an extrovert during a pandemic, risking infection every weekend, no one questions it.


If you’re an introvert on social networks the question “am I an addict” is repeated over and over.


I could go on, but at the end of the day Social media, and social networks, should be about like minded people connecting to have conversations online, before meeting in person and doing sports, working on projects or more. The race to followers and likes, completely nullifies the appeal of personal conversations that lead to long-lasting friendships. It is a shame. I have been discussing this for decades now.

Trevolution Ultralight Daypack – Thoughts After a Few Uses

Byrichard

If you want a bag that isn’t a bag until you need it to be a bag then the Trevolution Ultralight Daypack is a great option. I like that it folds into its bag and that it’s easy to have with you at all times. What I don’t like about the version I have is that it’s too flimsy for daily use and the top opening is not practical. It requires both hands to open and close the main compartment.


I don’t like its feel on my back during daily walks. All the wait shifts to the wrong place and the straps feel flimsy when used for one and a half to two hour daily walks. It is not for that niche.


The niches that it does fill:


  • A shopping bag for carrying your shopping to the car, instead of using plastic or paper bags
  • A book carrier, if like me you start a walk, see a lending library and pick up a book or two, but don’t want to carry them home in your hands
  • A spare bag, in the car, for when you drop into shops where you’re not allowed to go in with a bag. Decathlon in Paris, or Mediamarkt for example. (I write this more as a joke than as a serious comment).
  • Travel by plane or train. I like to travel with just a twenty five litre bag, which is great for the trip, but a pain to walk around with in a city. Having a small bag is great, because you don’t need to empty the main bag.
  • Museums and other cultural locations: In the past I have been to events where I am told that I need to check in my bag if I want to enter. I usually don’t want to. With this bag you can fold it away, into it’s carrying pouch and then you’re fine.
  • Conferences and events: It fits in your pocket, and if you pick things up you don’t need to pick up yet another tote bag.


For at least two or three years I used a stoke Bike 10 litre bag. I used it so often, for daily walks to the shops, my daily one and a half hour walks, and more, that the zip eventually gave in. Small bags are great because you can use them for a rain coat, water and external battery to charge the phone.


Conclusion


This is a backup or secondary bag. It is good to keep in the car, in the pocket of a traveling bag or a coat pocket. It is good for occasional use. If you want a bag that you can use for two hours a day on a daily basis then a proper bag is better. If I could I would swap it for the version with a zip, rather than the cord to store helmets or other bulkier items. The one with a zip is 9 CHF more. There is a Sea To Summit variant.

Trip Desire

Trip Desire

Byrichard

This morning I found that I did have trip desire after all. As I drove out of a village towards the East I found that I had this desire. I did want to go for a long drive, and go on a trip. It has been January 2019 that I haven’t traveled. My reason, before, was that we need to stay locally, to stop the spread of the pandemic. I had the old fashioned notion that a pandemic should be neutralised as soon as possible.


That quaint, old fashioned notion is no longer contemporary. In the age of information, in the age of mRNA vaccines, 24 hour news, hundreds of hours a minute of information by audio, video, text and more, people are more vulnerable to propaganda and disinformation than before. We see how vulnerable societies have become to manipulation. People said of media studies, that they were a Mickey Mouse course, a soft topic to study. This pandemic shows that the opposite is true. It is because other people are media illiterate that they have been so easy to mislead and manipulate.


The result is a paradigm shift. We have gone from “We must control and stop pandemics from spreading as quickly and efficiently as possible” to “this group don’t get sick” and “wash your hands”, despite it being common knowledge that the virus is airborne.


All this to say that my principle of not traveling during a pandemic is a waste of time. I might as well go on a road trip. It doesn’t mean that I won’t keep isolating to a maximum, anyway. It just means that my self-isolated walks will be in a different landscape, as well as my walks. I think that after almost two years I have earned the right.


I would have gone sooner but I have finished the Beginner WordPress Developer pathway, which means that my learning can be more experimental as I practice the new skills I learned during the course. This can be done anywhere, and a few minutes at a time. I don’t need to be in a quiet space to focus and make progress.


It is also of course an excuse to drive the new car for several hours in a row. My longest drive during this pandemic has been to Lausanne and back. This next trip will take about thirteen hours of driving. If I have good sleep hygiene over the coming week I should be fine.


And that’s it for today.

Switching From MySQL to MariaDB with Infomaniak
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Switching From MySQL to MariaDB with Infomaniak

Byrichard

Today I tried Switching from MySQL to MariaDB with Infomaniak as a webhost. This morning they sent an e-mail to say that we could switch from MySQL to MariaDB automatically so I tried. For the test I:


  • downloaded a new install of wordpress to my local machine and put it in the MAMP htdocs folder under mariadb.
  • I installed MariaDB on port 3310.
  • Using the command line I created a wordpress database.
  • I configured WordPress. Within seconds the website was up and running.
  • When I saw that the interface was that the same and that I had to make no changes I went ahead with Infomaniak.
  • Of course I backed up the MySQL server data, just in case.


Within a matter of minutes of telling Infomaniak to switch from MySQL to MariaDB the migration was finished and the website was up and running again. It was quick and painless. If something did go wrong I could easily step back but I also ensured that the user interface for MariaDB and MySQL were the same. When you’re coding websites from scratch some databases require different lines of code to function. That was my concern, and that’s why I decided to experiment with a small scale trial on my own machine.


How to create a database and tables in MariaDB


To learn about the differences between MariaDB and MySQL.


The plugin I modified for my own use, works on one of my local wordpress installs so I could port it to the website. I still want to experiment with having custom css for those pages without pasting the code as custom html. Custom HTML in WordPress is messy to deal with. I prefer to find a clean solution.

JSON, Custom HTML and a Rainy Walk

Byrichard

JSON


Today I spent some time expanding my knowledge of JSON because understanding how JSON works, and how it works, opens doors. Every social network allows you to download your file as a JSON file. If you learn how to use JSON you can then re-use your data on a site of your own design, according to your own moral code.


WordPress and Custom HTML


I was also playing with static pages from the older parts of my website and trying to bring them into wordpress and for now it half, rather than fully works. My goal is to be able to have The Romans section with one look, the Geography section with another and the Environmental Systems with a third, to give just two examples. I found something promising but I haven’t understood it fully yet. It is a work in progress.


A Centralised Web and WEB 3.0


People are arguing that the world wide web needs to be decentralised, to become web 3.0 and yet the services we use are more and more centralised. Google, Amazon and Microsoft all have data centres and are getting a stranglehold on hosting and cloud solutions. Solutions like those by Infomaniak are much harder to learn about because they are still a small player, in contrast to the giants.


Facebook went down due to a misconfiguration error and two topics come to mind. The first is that Facebook shouldn’t have all three services on the same backbone because it becomes a single point of failure, and that was precisely what the Internet was designed to avoid. The second issue is that behemoths like Facebook should not exist, because they monopolise too much. When they went down IM went down for many, image sharing went down for many, and discussion groups went down for many. For a slice in time the world had to think of an alternative to communicate. Even Facebook had to.


This demonstrates that the Web, when it is too centralised, as it is via Facebook, has become fragile. I don’t mention Google, Amazon or Microsoft because they are giants, but they help the little guys be seen. Facebook doesn’t. It likes to capture and keep its traffic. We need to keep working on personal websites, to keep the web from being to vulnerable to outages.


And Finally – A Rainy Walk


As is usually the case, I did not set out on my walk in the rain, expecting to get rained on. I set off because although the weather app said there would be rain, did not say that it would be heavy, so I set off and for most of the walk the weather was nice. Not t-shirt weather nice, but bits of sun, and not too cold.


During the walk I took the Sigg original bottle. I put it in my coat pocket and forgot about it. By this I mean that it’s so small and light that it doesn’t get in the way of walking at full speed for an hour or two. It’s a good, small bottle, for when you want a drink, but you’re not in the middle of a heatwave.


And now for something else to read: Understanding How Facebook Disappeared from the Internet


The Sigg Original and The Shield One – Thoughts

The Sigg Original and The Shield One – Thoughts

Byrichard

A single coke will cost 4.50 in a bar. Water could even cost four francs per glass. When you go to the shops do you buy a few litres of Rivella or coke. Do you buy wine, vodka or other alcohols? If you do then you can easily spend thirty or more francs per week, on glasses that will leave you thirsty, drinks that will leave you hungover, and containers that will require you to consider a trip to the recycling centre.


Now imagine habituating yourself to drinking water. “But we already do, you’re the only one that doesn’t.” ;-).


I do drink water, but when I’m out hiking, cycling or doing other sports. I don’t usually drink water at home. I didn’t like the taste of the tap water. That has changed. Now I can drink several litres a day. With the Camelbak Eddy+ and Chute adapters I found that I was still curious about experimenting with the Nalgene bottle. I want it for water purification rather than daily use.


Shield One


For two days I used the Shield One. I like it. I thought that the mouth piece would be uncomfortable to drink from and I thought that the bottle felt heavy for the first two or three drinks. Now I find that the weight is fine and I like drinking from it. It is well designed and easy to drink from with a single hand. This is especially useful for when you’re doing something with your other hand, like hanging off a cliff, or driving a car.


Sigg Original


The Sigg original looks rough on the outside, until you touch it. The surface is smooth. I drank three litres from it today. My impression of it is good. The lid takes a little more time to open than other water bottles. It feels compact compared to the half litre traveller I have but it takes up more space.


And Finally


Switching to drinking water wasn’t difficult. I haven’t cut out the other drinks. I reduced my intake. It feels luxurious to drink water because it is unlimited. Simply open the tap. With Coke, Rivella and any other drinks you need to get them at the shops, carry them up, etc. With water the process is simple. It’s on tap.

Enjoying A Rainy Day

Enjoying A Rainy Day

Byrichard

Although unfamiliar to most, there is pleasure to be felt from a day of rain. A day of rain, in a place where rain is rare is welcome. It provides a break from the daily walk. It provides an extra one and a half hours in a day. I have been impatient for such a day for months and it has finally arrived. Who wouldn’t want a day a rain. The rivers are happy. They were looking naked, with their rocks showing, and trees that are sometimes at river water level hanging high and dry. It will be good for the trees and everything else too. Rain cleans everything. That layer of dust that had accumulated over the weeks and months can finally run away, to flow into the lake, and from the lake down a river, towards the sea. It is also a break from the pressure of walking. Although walking is pleasant, and although it is relaxing, it is also a workout. You’re walking, deciding on a route, avoiding people and their dogs, and trying not to be yelled at by car drivers. You walk by one village and you hear a piano being played through a window. You wonder whether it is every day at the same time, whether the person is learning. Maybe it is simply someone who likes listening to music.


I Considered A Twitter Break


This morning I considered taking a twitter break after I saw one or two tweets that either seemed toxic or made me have a negative response. I take social media breaks, not because of negative opinions of social networks, but because either the people, or the conversations are not as pleasant or positive as I would like. I want to have fun, not be negative.


Not Drinking Enough


During this pandemic, after taking the habit of shopping for drinks once per week I find that my drinking habit declined. Instead of drinking two to three litres like some applications and journals recommend I drank one to one and a half litres. Recently I have started drinking more water and I see a change. In particular I am two to three weeks in. I am happy just to drink water now.

Audiobooks, Instead of Podcasts

Audiobooks, Instead of Podcasts

Byrichard

I love books, and I love podcasts. We will never get to the end of our podcast queue, but we will work towards the end of our reading lists. My reading list is 70+ books long so it would take months of effort to get through. My goal is not that ambitious. My goal is to read the 25 books this year, that I set out to read. I am three behind schedule. At the start I was seven behind schedule so I have made up for the time that I have been missing. We will see whether I reach this year’s goal.


The Pre-Lunch Walk


The pre-lunch walk was nice. I went from seeing cattle that were resting to cattle that were eating grass with the alps as a backdrop, as well as the Mont Blanc. I also saw a tractor with a trailer filled with beets drive by me before dumping its load into a field, waiting to be transported at a later time. I also another tractor unloading its cargo into a conveyor system to dump onto a train, for transport. The walk was interesting, due in part, to walking a slightly different route at a different time of day.


A field, cows, and the Alps
A field, cows, and the Alps


Desaturating The Mind on Twitter


Not all tweets are positive, and not all tweets are according to your values and your desires. That being written, not all tweets warrant a response, and not all tweets deserve an argument. Recently someone has responded to tweets of mine, but rather than to have a conversation and to listen, to impose their view. Oh, you think this, but that’s what others think. Twice I have considered blocking that person because twice it has made me uncomfortable.


I am a single person, living alone, and in between contracts. I use social media to establish personal connections, and to feel less solitude. What I have felt, with this individual, at least twice, is rage, and a desire to block them. If I write something that you don’t agree with, ignore it. Don’t bludgeon me with “but people think something different.”


In the grand scheme of things the question is not whether people think differently, but whether the difference of opinions of two people sees the rights of one, put upon by the habits of the other. If I need to close the window, and turn on the extractor fan, I am not the unreasonable one. I am not the one that is being selfish.


I have now blocked the person who likes to impose their views and opinions, rather than just listen.


And Finally – 1st Thoughts on the SIgg Shield One


It’s heavy and the handle is not as wide as I thought it was. It does open easily but the part that is meant to keep clean, seems to trap water. It was dry when I checked now. The difference in weight between the Sigg Traveller, which is similar to my old bottle is 147 grams, compared to 230. That 100 gram difference is big when you’re hiking or climbing. This is a bottle that would be good for work, the home or a flat short walk.