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Playing With the Switzerland Mobility App
Yesterday I was planning to walk from Nyon to La Barillette but rather than take the usual route that takes me via a set of cabins where there is sometimes a dog I wanted to try an alternate route. In the end I used the Switzerland Mobility app and website because I can trust that the paths they suggest actually exist.
Garmin Explore
At first I was experimenting with the Garmin Explore App and although it does provide us with the opportunity to draw routes it creates a track but we don’t have information about whether it’s on a road, or other surfaces, and we’re not sure that the data is correct.
Komoot and Alltracks
I then tried to draw the same route with Komoot, and possibly Alltrack, and it created a route, and gave me information about what to expect, but once again I didn’t know whether I could trust that the route existed or not. That’s when I looked for the official Swiss eco-friendly mobility app.
Sqitzerland Mobility
Switzerland Mobility is an official app that provides you with all hiking, cycling, canoeing, snowshoeing, canoeing and other routes. Look around the map and you can see local hikes, bike routes and more. You can also see places to sleep, whether hotels, hostels or campings. This simplifies adventure planning in Switzerland.
Skating and Canoeing
It amuses me that they have skating and canoeing routes available for people to enjoy. Those are two sports I wouldn’t have considered looking for. With skating they also include slow ups. Slow ups are good because roads are closed to cars, for cyclists, walkers and skaters to enjoy the surface, without the danger of cars.
The Phone App
The phone app is well designed. It is easy to look for routes, and to jump between route stages. If you’re looking at the Via Jacobi you can go back and forth between stages, as well get info about the distance of that stage, climbing and descending, as well as the hiking time. Finally it will provide you with access to the Swiss transport network, to get to and from the starting and end points.
Drawing Routes
If you pay 35 CHF per year you gain access to draw routes. The reason for doing this is that you gain access to the Swiss database of walking paths that other websites and services may not have. You can zoom in to a scale of 100m to whatever your screen is set to, so you can see a very detailed map, with contours and more. It also provides you with information about path closures and alternative routes. This is practical for local exploration of a region that you may be familiar with.
And Finally
I expected to try the walk I drew yesterday afternoon but due to going to sleep later than anticipated, and then not having something to do once at the top, I cancelled that plan. That’s why I am speaking hypothetically, rather than documenting an experience.
Self-Sacrifice and Pandemics
Self-Sacrifice and Pandemics are intimate friends. In order for a pandemic to end we must learn to do without things that we need. We go without meeting friends for months, we go without hugs or handshakes for months. We go without restaurants, bars, cafés or cinemas for months. We go without needing the internal combustion for days at a time.
Human Contact
I mention all of these things looking at the past 76 days. Yesterday I had my first human to human contact in that many days. Today I shook my first hand. Between yesterday and today I transitioned from being two or more meters from people at all times to being close. I went into homes that were not my own.
For those who were not alone in self-isolation this might seem uninteresting but for many of us, who live in solitude, is a big step towards post-pandemic life. We can return to being within society, rather than on its outskirts. We don’t need to be distant and cold.
Of course the two meter rules are still in effect, but in two specific contexts I have let the rules slide for family.
The Return to Cycling
Although I didn’t make much fuss about the return to cycling this was a big step towards post-pandemic life. During the pandemic, I did not cycle because I wanted to reach only places that I could reach within an hour to an hour and a half of walking. By cycling, I decided the rule was no longer needed. My range of places to go, and experiences to have expanded.
During the pandemic people went on 80km rides, and I could have done the same, but I sacrificed because I believed that the cost to society would be too high, if I was infected and spread it, or if the opposite happened.
Solitude
Yesterday someone spoke about feeling uncomfortable saying no to meeting friends during the pandemic after I had done the same. My reasons for not meeting those friends were:
- It would have required crossing seven or eight towns and villages at rush hour
- The group would have been from seven to nine people large when the scientists recommended that groups be no larger than five individuals
- The meeting was too late for me to include it within a bike ride, and I don’t want to return to using a car every single day like I used to.
- The location would have required me to drive for two and a half hours to three hours at best.
The emotional cost of this was huge, because I really did need to be sociable for the first time in over 70 days and I couldn’t, because couples who were not lonely and in solitary confinement went together anyway.
If you were not alone with yourself for seventy plus days then you cannot understand. As a joke I started to say that I was a pandemic hermit because of the self-isolation.
Driving to Do Things
So far during the pandemic the furthest I have driven is to the top of a mountain. I can get there within fifty five minutes so that shows how close it was. For sixty to seventy days I never crossed the Canton/state lines. I still haven’t been into a city.
The Brits got angry with Cummings for the road trip and I do understand that anger. I felt it when I saw people do touristy things at the peak of the pandemic in Switzerland. It made me angry that I self-sacrificed whilst they went on as normal, and it made me angry because of their apathy towards other people and the rules.
In a pandemic we must all sacrifice, and behave as a united society because solidarity is important, but also because the more seriously people take lockdown rules the sooner a pandemic is over. The less self-sacrificing people are, the more drawn-out the pandemic lasts.
Still Not Over
The pandemic is still not over, but at least those of us who were in solitude for over two months can re-emerge and re-integrate society, one small step at a time.
One Hundred Day of 10,000 Steps
Today marks 100 days in a row of walking 10,000 steps a day. It helps that we’re in winter than in summer because my step streaks are broken when I go for bike rides. Step counters don’t count pedalling as steps, so it’s easy to lose a streak.
I could pretend that I have learned ten things by walking ten thousand steps a day but the truth is that I haven’t. I simply have a habit of walking that is not affected by snow, rain, wind or other. I walk every day, and sometimes the streak is consistent enough to reach 100 days according to an app by Pedometer.
I make no effort to reach this streak. I reach it by accident because my routine is good for such habits to thrive. When summer comes back I will probably get back to cycling once again, and the streak will be lost. Last year my step count was low, due to cycling. It went from 5.5 million down to about four and a half million due to cycling.
I doubt that I will reach another 100 days. Summer will be back and I will do more than walk or run around. If I get to a point where I find running comfortable rather than strenuous then I might run more than cycle but this will be decided within the next few months, in time for summer.
And Finally
It’s funny that I completely fell out of love with Zwift. Years ago I loved it, and every two or three days I would do a strenuous workout. Now I don’t care. It did change because of two key reasons. The first is that they got millions invested in them so it felt stupid to pay for them when investors were their cash cow. The second reason is that despite getting millions in funds from investors when I had a technical issue they made no effort to help. When you’re paying 20 per month, and they have millions invested, and they make no effort to keep you, there is no reason to stay. My logic was “If I buy a new indoor trainer I will spend hundreds, to spend hundreds more on a service, with a bike that cost hundreds more.
Zwift was a good option when it worked with the devices I had, and when the barrier to entry was low. As soon as the barrier rose, so the interest collapsed.
Application Programming Interfaces, Really Simple Syndication and the Open Protocols
Twitter and Reddit want to charge people to use their API despite already wanting people to pay them directly. Twitter decided to drive users away and make itself more expensive. As a result of this the website is imploding, rather than thriving.
Yesterday I read that Reddit, too, wanted to charge users to access its API and whilst this may make sense to some, it’s absurd. It’s absurd because Twitter and Reddit can already charge their users directly for use. By increasing the cost of API use they are trying to get money from their users twice. Once for use of the website, and again for use of the website via APIs and third party apps. The result is that people could spend over a hundred francs per year to exchange messages. For that price we might as well return to SMS.
Running alongside APIs we have really Simple Syndication and ActivityPub. Both are means of syndicating content but one is centralised whilst the other is not.
Years ago people complained that Facebook sucked data into its ecosystem but then behaved like a silo, unwilling to share it. Twitter is making the same mistake.
The ChatGPT explanation
Really Simple Syndication (RSS):
Functionality: RSS is a standardized format for publishing frequently updated content, such as blog posts, news articles, podcasts, and more. It allows users to subscribe to content feeds and receive updates whenever new content is published.
Use Case: RSS is commonly used by content publishers to provide their audience with a way to stay updated on new content without having to visit the website regularly. Users can use RSS feed readers or aggregators to subscribe to their preferred feeds and receive updates in one place.
Application Programming Interfaces (APIs):
Functionality: APIs are sets of rules and protocols that allow different software applications to communicate and interact with each other. APIs define how different components of software systems can interact, exchange data, and access functionality provided by another application or service.
Use Case: APIs are used for various purposes, such as retrieving data from external sources, integrating different systems, enabling interactions with third-party services, and building software applications that rely on the functionality and data provided by APIs.
ActivityPub:
Functionality: ActivityPub is a decentralized social networking protocol that enables users to create, share, and interact with social activities across different platforms or instances. It facilitates the exchange of social data and interactions between federated platforms, allowing users on one platform to communicate and engage with users on other platforms.
Use Case: ActivityPub is used in federated social networks, where users can create profiles, post updates, follow other users, comment, like, and perform other social interactions. It allows users to have control over their data while being part of a larger interconnected social network.
chatGPT, as generated on the 3rd of June 2023 with the prompt: “What is the difference between Really Simple Syndication, Application Programming interfaces and Activitypub”
Twitter and Reddit want to charge for the use of their API but in the new age of social networks the shift is towards a decentralised model where everyone can talk to everyone else.
On the FediDB website you see that Mastodon, Misskey, Peertube, pixelfed, Writefreely and Wordpress are included within the fediverse. People already have the freedom to join the instance and community that they want, whilst being connected to other instances. In so doing instances are individually controlled, but the reach is global.
Whilst Twitter, Meta et al try to trap users into their ecosystems and charge them to use their website, their API and more, alternatives are being created where voluntary contributions are possible, to keep servers running.
Twitter and Reddit want to charge people to access their databases and use their APIs, at the same time as the ActivityPub and Authenticated Transfer protocols are being developed. At a time when Reddit and Twitter should be fighting to keep third party developers interested they are doing the opposite, by pricing them out of the development cycle.
And Finally
For the first time since 2006 the Social Web is broadening again as new projects and ideas are developed and implemented that help connect people, without making them vulnerable to single points of failures. When Instagram and WhatsApp were bought by Facebook the web lost a lot of its resiliency. With the buying of Twitter by an individual the need to prevent this from ever happening again became clear and interesting solutions are coming up. I like that the Fediverse exists and is coming of age, and that BlueSky may run in parallel. Twitter and Reddit are trying to charge for their data, but their data is no longer niche.
Bear Spray will work on any mammal with eyes.
https://www.advnture.com/features/does-bear-spray-work-on-wolves
I was curious about whether bear spray or pepper spray would be good to carry, now that wolves are common, and being spotted by skiers, hikers, and dameuse drivers (Dameuse are ski piste tractors that repair the pistes while people enjoy Après Ski drinks.