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.
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.
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.
Most people go and take pictures from the front rather than from the back of sunflowers. I like to be different because it’s more interesting. Taking pictures from the front is easy now. All phone makers have made it easy.
It’s good to do things differently and to stay creative. I took this during the daily bike ride.
During a pandemic one of the safest places to be is on a bike on quiet rural roads. The only people you meet are sporty so there is a higher likelihood that they are sporty.
Today I had to be respectful when passing two horses. They can often be afraid when they see cyclists, as we look strange. Bright colours, a strange machine underneath us. It can also be that the rider is also a little afraid. I always pass or let horses pass with caution.
A few bike rides ago I was told that they get spooked when they don’t know what is behind them. In this case I was in front of the horses.
I take the paths because I want to avoid dangerous roads and cars. The weather was good for cycling today.
Today I went for a 12km walk over two hours in 26°c heat. According to the Suunto 5 Peak I have depleted my resources. I am at just three percent now. I need a proper night of sleep and some rest to recover.
Productive Training
According to the Suunto app I am in productive training and my fitness is increasing, but in the process my form is declining. I am, at least theoretically overtraining. This is not unusual for me. I walk, cycle or run every single day. It has been my routine for years.
Waking Earlier
What is not routine is getting up at 6 or 7, to do sports in the morning. Usually I do it in the afternoon, after a productive morning. I prefer to study and blog, before I go for my daily walk, bike ride or run. I prefer to be fresh, when I need to think, and procrastinate once my focus is gone.
Looking at Steps With the Apple Fitness App
Earlier I noticed that I could change which metric I was looking at, so I chose to look at steps rather than calories burned. I am currently losing patience with the Apple Watch and Apple Fitness App. The phone knows how many steps I have taken, and yet it insists on showing the data from the Apple Watch.
Cruel Weather
There was a time when we would be desperate for good weather so that we could do things. Now I want the opposite. I’m tired of the never-ending sunshine and never having an excuse to take a rest day. If the weather was bad then I could think “tomorrow I’m staying in.
The weather forecasst for the rest of the forseeable future is sunny and warm, and I’m tired of it always being sunny. I never exptected that I would want rain.
The landscape desperately needs rain. It rains, but so little that the ground doesn’t soften enough to absorb the rain, so we’re back to walking on dirt, rather than mud. In the last two or three months, maybe even longer, I have had to clean my shoes of mud twice.
I miss the rain. I miss the excuse to stay in and study. When the weather never changes, rain becomes a treat. I never expected that I would want rain
And Finally
I wrote this post a day early because tomorrow morning I’ll be procrastinating rather than studying.
In today’s Le Matin, which was then mentioned by the RTS they discuss the impact of the pandemic of girls. When I first read this I was unclear as to whether they mean women or girls. It is about girls. The article speaks about how boys can play computer games and compete and in general to win, whereas girls go to social networks and compare themselves to their peers and other girls. As a result of this they end up needing psychological help.
This is relevant to my blog because for decades I have argued that social media should be a place for conversations and friendships. Websites such as Facebook, Instagram and apps like TikTok encourage women, not to converse, but to be beautiful, be better coordinated than others, imitate, use filters and more. Women are encouraged to be superficially beautiful rather than to converse, interact and establish something meaningful.
Look at Instagram. Many girls, and women post self-portraits, copy trends and do such things. Their presence is axed towards being appealing, talented and more.
This isn’t good. Websites like Instagram used to be networks of friends sharing with direct friends, Facebook was about sharing with uni friends, and Twitter was a place where we could converse, with people that those we followed were conversing with. Every network was about networks of trust and friendships.
Today, with algorithms, memes, trends and more, via TikTok, Instagram and Facebook the friendship aspect is gone, to focus on influencers, making money, and being part of trends. The individual has been lost in a sea of conformity. It is for this reason that girls would be struggling during the pandemic.
As a single person I can’t stand Facebook, Instagram, or even TikTok, and I am an adult with a clearly defined identity, in theory. TikTok, Facebook and Instagram are designed in such a way that genuine friendships and conversations are hard or impossible, so it is easy to fall into a positive feedback loop where we feel worse and worse about our lives.
It doesn’t need to be that way. If social networks allowed for personal connections to form, showed networks of friends of friends, rather than strangers, then social media would stop being about the superficial, and return to being about the genuine.
That’s why I can still stand Twitter, and WordPress. Both are about human to human connections. Both are healthy.
For three years I did not cycle. For one year it was because I broke my arm while cycling, The second year it was because we were in the first wave of this never-ending pandemic so I preferred not to stray too far from home. The third year it was because the pandemic was still not over, but it felt as if we had a chance. This year is different. This year we know that the Swiss government doesn’t care either way. For the Swiss the pandemic is over, whether that is true, or false.
In light of this we could continue to self-isolate and to avoid doing anything away from home but cycling is one of the rare things that we can do that doesn’t A) Require a car and B) Doesn’t require being indoors with others. For both of these reasons cycling is a good sport to practice when Covid denialism is government policy.
For this bike ride I intentionally went into France, to explore a little. Usually I forget the passport or other documents but not this time. It feels good to explore the old places, once more. Despite the never-ending pandemic, at least solitary cycling can range further afield.
My mental health would do a lot better if I knew that various European countries were working towards Covid-Zero, but as has become the tradition now, European countries are pretending the pandemic is over, so that there is another Autumn and Winter wave. This has become the new normal. The new normal is not moral. There is little we can do about this as private individuals except self-isolate.
Over the last day or two I have taken a break from JavaScript to look at Ruby. It feels like a very different type of language so it’s good to see how things work in another programming language. So far I am struggling with transposing the knowledge with some things, but others are clear. I decided to write the JS equivalent name in my notes, to help with comparing the two. I might continue in this line for the weekend, and resume my regular studying on Monday.
The Apple Watch rather than fill a niche provides a fifth screen. According to Wikipedia the four first screens are the cinema screen, the television screen and the mobile phone and tablet screen. The fifth screen is the smart watch as designed by Apple, Samsung, Sony and others. Apple and others have designed phones that bring the mobile phone experience to the wrist.
Energy efficient
Suunto, Garmin, Fitbit and other brands fill the wrist worn niche effectively because they have designed devices with energy efficient displays that provide tracking whilst at the same time giving extended battery life.
Extended battery life in use
Health trackers by fitbit and other companies have been designed to last for a week or more whilst tracking movement 24 hours a day. Suunto, Garmin and other brands have designed watches that can track activities for hours or even days before they need charging.
Long stand by time
When not in use all of the devices mentioned above can last for weeks. In the case of the Suunto Ambit two I have found that it loses one percentage of charge per day. As a result of this it can be used as a watch for three months before I need to think of charging.
Data analysis
All of these tools are for collecting data about the route you took, the intensity of the exercise tracked, heart rate and complementary information. When synced on the computer or website a lot of information is presented. Garmin syncs with Runkeeper, Strava, Garmin connect and other services, Suunto syncs with Movescount and Strava intuitively. Fitbit syncs with the fitbit site and other fitness apps. The most interesting data is analysed on a computer rather than the wrist unit. This leaves the device to track information cost effectively, where cost is battery life, and effective is defined by how long you can track an activity.
Conclusion:
My passion for “smart watches” stems from scuba diving. I bought a Suunto D9 to track dives and loved taking dive data and analysing it in view of improving my diving ability. I tracked training at the gym, hiking and other activities with various phones and their weakness was battery life. When you go for a hike in the mountains, go for a via ferrata or do a number of other sporting activities for extended periods of time you want a device that can last as long as you do.
Suunto’s Ambit 2 filled that need very well, so well that I upgraded to the Suunto Ambit 3. As an android user I can’t  take advantage of all the features yet but that will come soon, this month in fact.
The Apple Watch does not fill any of the requirements I have listed above and for this reason I am not tempted. I see it as a fifth screen that does not fill a niche. Fitness trackers, fitness watches and other devices cost the same price or less and fill niche requirements effectively. Why would I want a gimmick?
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