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A book on Sleep and Sleep Tracking Apps

Byrichard

Why We Sleep

Sleep is something that we do almost every day and yet explore it only superficially. We either say “I should go to sleep” or “I wish I had slept longer”. Recently I read “Why We Sleep”. It’s an interesting book because it explores the topic in such depth. I learned that birds sleep on power lines and the birds on the right and the left of the group are sleeping with one eye open. Half of their brain is sleeping whilst the other half is awake. Half way through the sleep cycle they hop around and the other eye is opened and that half of the brain takes over. Sleep is a fascinating topic.

Sleep As Android

I have been playing with two apps for over a year now. One of these is Sleep As Android. When I first started using this app it required being placed in the bed to detect when I moved. Over time they developed technology so that it uses “sonar” to detect when we move during the night. Thanks to the “sonar” feature I can keep the phone up to a metre away from me.

I might have tracked up to 576 nights of sleep with this app. With this app I can see the duration, the irregularity, how much of my sleep cycle is deep, how efficient it is and how I rate it. It shows my how bad or good my sleep deficit is and what my chronotype is. According to the app I am a morning lark.

This app gives advice. This app believes that to maximise sleep I should go to sleep at 23:15 and that to maximise deep sleep I should sleep 8hrs 10.

Sleep Cycle

Another app I have played with extensively is Sleep Cycle. I used this app to track my sleep for several hundred nights of which six months was whilst working as an aircraft deicer. This is relevant because I was trying to go to sleep for 1800 and waking for 2am. Of course, I usually went to sleep around 2000 or so. I mention this because if any sleep specialists read this blog I am ready to share the data. Since then I have gone back to sleeping more pleasant hours.

This app provides you with a sleep graph per night, the time you went to bed and got up, sleep quality, time with noise, sleep notes, wake up mood, heart rate, step count and total nights tracked. I have tracked 303 nights of sleep with the app.

When you look at the trends tab you can see sleep quality and you can compare it with entire countries. You can track how regular your “went to bed” graph is, how much time you spent in bed, the time at which you woke up, what factors result in better sleep, decreased sleep, weather effect, air pressure, moon and location. You can also track your heart rate when you wake up. My average is currently 47 bpm, average in Switzerland is 67, Denmark, 65 and Turkey 73. The heart rate measurement comes from shining light through your finger and the phone detecting the change in colour per heartbeat.

Apparently, my best night of sleep is on a Tuesday and it gets progressively worse as the week wears on.

 

Finding time for Long-Form Writing and Other Pursuits.
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Finding time for Long-Form Writing and Other Pursuits.

Byrichard

Finding time for Long Form Writing

This morning I read twenty percent of a book whilst sitting in the car waiting for shops to open. In the process I occasionally looked up to see private jets and airlines fly over me. A few years ago in the same situation I would have been staring at my phone. I would have been refreshing twitter and Facebook looking for conversations. These days social media marketers and others are using social media as if they were Really Simple Syndication feeds, RSS. The problem with RSS feeds is that there a low signal to noise ratio. You need to skip hundreds of pieces of content for one or two worthwhile posts.

Highest Return on Investment for Social Media

When I finished university in London I had an extremely high return on investment for the time spent with twitter, Facebook and social networks. I was invited to events, to alpha projects and establishing friendships that last to this day. When I left London Facebook and twitter were still sticky because I was able to keep in contact with friends in a diversity of geographic locations. We’re the easyjet generation after all.

Flooded with content rather than Conversation

For several months now I have been spending less and less time with social media, not because my desire to socialise has gone down but because the success rate has suffered. News organisations, celebrities, personalities and brands are flooding social media with content rather than conversation. Facebook and Twitter have algorithms to make sure that brand and paid for content is seen a dozen times. A consequence is that we don’t see conversations. Not seeing conversations negates the purpose of social media.

Back to Passive pass-times.

Without conversations on social media we can go back to reading books, playing computer games, watching television series, blogging and more. The reason we came to social media was to socialise. The reason we cut down on social media is that like the bars, pubs and playgrounds of our childhood people have moved on. Some are in their marriage bubble, others are focused on their career and yet more are enjoying sports.

This year I will try to finish at least one book every two weeks. I will try to go on multi-day hikes every single weekend and more. We can also go back to reading and writing blog posts.

A missed opportunity.

When I was in London and we were living the golden age of social media I almost started to believe that social media adoption rates were increasing so much that they would be a great way to meet people who lived within walking or driving distance. For a moment being an online introvert was fruitious. over time of course engagement decayed and social media stopped being a practical place for introverts to meet up. Commercialism turned social media into the same competition as the Physical world.

 

 

The Suunto Spartan Wrist HR
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The Suunto Spartan Wrist HR

Byrichard

Suunto Spartan Wrist HR

My latest Suunto device is the Suunto Spartan Wrist Hr. This is a practical device that finally includes two features that I really wanted to see in a suunto device. The first of these is the Wrist heart rate monitor function and the second is a step counter that tracks physical effort on a daily basis and that can be reviewed later.

Used for a multitude of sports.

I have used this device to track hikes, runs, indoor climbing, outdoor climbing, walks within cities and 7 minute workouts. Two of the devices strengths is that I no longer need to wear the heart rate monitor belt. This saves a few seconds and when you’re hiking or doing other activities with groups this is a nice feature. The second nice feature is that it detects GPS signals and provides a position within seconds. This means that you don’t need to wait or two like you needed to with the Suunto Ambit 3 and others.

Fitbit replacement

I have owned a number of fitbit devices and I liked that they tracked step count and heart rate 24 hours a day but I did not like that the data was siloed. I also disliked that most of their devices are not shower proof. This means that you need to take them off every single day. With the Suunto Spartan Wrist HR I can wear it 24 hours a day and keep track of my movements throughout the day for multiple days between charges. I can also keep track of data for the day, the week and longer periods of time. In effect it has allowed me to stop using the Suunto Ambit three and the Fitbit charge 2 in tandem. I am back to wearing just one device.

Movescount and Sports tracker combined

I am currently beta testing the Suunto Version 0.4.0 app and it now combines Movescount and Sports tracker, two apps that I have now been using to track fitness activities for years. I have been using sports tracker since it was available on the Nokia N95 8gb. I am now at over 1100 tracked activities and I like the data that both apps provide. Combining both apps is a nice move forward.

A list of drones I have tried this year.

A list of drones I have tried this year.

Byrichard

Trying various drones

This year I finally bought a few drones to play with and DJI and Hubsan are currently my favourite brands. The most fun to fly indoors is the Hubsan Nano Q111 drone, or something to that effect. At first this is a hard and temperamental little drone to fly. Just getting it off the ground is a challenge., This challenge comes from the fact that it has no pilot assistance. It slews to the right and the left and it has no altitude hold. This means that constant little inputs are needed. As the battery depletes you need to give the drone more power simply to hover. With practice the drone is really fun and best of all I didn’t break any props. I only burned out two of the motors when the drone got caught in something.

I tried flying the Q4 as well but the results were disappointing.

I tried flying the Demon something by some brand and this was a flop. The problem with this drone is that the props are well protected against colliding with things but the struts are too fragile. Within just a flight or two I broke the strut to one of the props and it is now great at spinning in place rather than flying.

DJI

Earlier this year I saw someone fly the DJI Mavic pro during the IFSC World cup and when I saw how easy it seemed to fly my interest grew exponentially. I saw that it could guide itself back to it’s take off point and was autonomous. For a while I hesitated about buying my own drone until I finally decided to buy the DJI Spark. This is a really fun drone to fly. It’s simple and intuitive to use and it provides great images. I have now flown it in France, Spain and Switzerland. What makes this drone so great is that it’s tiny, ideally suited for when I go hiking and to do other sports. I have 7 batteries for a total flying time of 105 minutes. I calculate three batteries per day and one spare. I am now at my 99th “flight” with that drone, My next flight will be number 100. We’ll see how I celebrate that.

Addressing the Stigma

There is a lot of stigma around drones. People are afraid that they will be used for spying, that they can be used as weapons, that they can interfere with aviation. The truth is that most drones are small and light and that the lens is wide therefore they can be heard from a distance. People refer to the sound they make as that of a large bumblebee. Not only can you hear them but you can also see them quite easily. Rules are in place to prevent us from flying above 120 metres in most countries, around cities and above crowds. We also have to fly them within visual range. This means that whenever people can see the drone they can see us. They can ask us to stop flying or they can ask questions.

As drone enthusiasts, we can work as ambassadors to show that drones are not the stigmatised devices that they were encouraged to fear. We can show them the beautiful images and videos we can get and we can also show them that some of them are relatively easy to fly. The better we behave as early adopters the fewer restrictions we will see implemented down the road. We have a moral duty to obey the rules and sensibilise the lay public to how much fun they can be.

 

 

Flying the DJI Spark is fun

Flying the DJI Spark is fun

Byrichard

My most recent flight with the DJI Spark was fun. As I forgot the miniSD card I decided just to fly it in sports mode over some empty fields. I ended up flying over 4km within visual range. It was fast, responsive and behaved just as I wanted it to.

Indoor flying

Flying the drone indoors is possible. Thanks to its downward facing cameras and proximity sensors it detects when it flies too close to objects and stops. It does have the weakness that if it detects objects below it or objects ahead of it it will back and rise. As it has no upward looking sensors and no sensors looking behind or to the sides the risk of collisions increases. For these reasons flying indoors is more demanding. It also displaces a large volume of air. It will shift light objects so be careful what you fly over.

Outdoor flying

Every September the cows come down from the mountains and I decided to fly over them to get an original perspective. The advantage of filming swiss cows with a drone is that they’re wearing loud and noisy bells. This means that the drone is not noisy enough to be heard.

As there are fewer flight restrictions I flew over the Jura mountains and the footage I got was nice. I often use PolarPro ND filters and tweak the images in post production. The reason for this is that the dynamic range on this camera is low compared to others and the ND filters help the camera cope. I bring the blacks up, lower the highlights and adjust the mid tones slightly. The result is images such as you see in the video below.

It takes practice to get smooth shots. The controls are not as gradual as I would like so I sometimes cut from shot to shot when the camera is already moving at the desired speed. With time and practice, I aim to start and stop shots smoothly.

Small and portable

This drone is small and portable. It can easily fit into your hiking bag and with a few spare batteries, you can get some nice shots whilst hiking.Each battery lasts for about fifteen minutes so having 3-4 batteries should give you the desired flexibility. I usually take off from the ground after it has acquired 10 GPS or more. I then fly it, get the desired shots and then land it in my hand. When landing I don’t use the return to palm control. I get it close to me and then select land. I let it come down on my fingers and let it throttle down. This is a useful feature for when you are flying on a mountainside as there may be no suitable landing spots.

 

Drone Rules and regulations

Before flying the drone I study the flight rules and regulations for the country where I am flying. If you are flying in Switzerland then I suggest using this website to quickly identify what restrictions are in place before you fly. I also use this website to see what rules and regulations are in place before flying in France. In theory, the DJI maps provide you with this information already but in my experience, they are not as up to date as the Government flight restriction maps for drones.

 

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The Hubsan Nano Q4 H111 drone

Byrichard

The Hubsan Nano Q4 H111 drone is a tiny drone

The Hubsan Nano Q4 H111 drone is a tiny drone. It is not much more than a flying circuit board with four engines, a battery and a cowling. It is very light and fits easily on the screen of an iphone SE, along with it’s controller. Such a small drone requires practice to fly properly. This is because there are no flight assists. When you take off you need to apply just the right amount of thrust to hover and you need to make small adjustments to keep it from drifting. With practice you gain control of the quadcopter.

Constant adjustments

I found that when taking off it is good to get above the ground effect. This is because when it is within the ground effect zone it tends to skim in one direction or the other. Once you’re at 30 centimetres it becomes more stable. Keeping it at a specific height takes tiny thrust adjustements. As the battery depletes you need to give more thrust for it to stay at the same height or rise. Eventually it runs out of thrust and drifts to the ground.

When you turn the drone on the lights flash and when you turn the controller on the light on the controller flashes red for a few seconds. Once the controller and the drone are paired the light turns green. The thrust control does not spring back to neutral so if and when you feel that the drone is about to crash throttle to zero.

More demanding to fly than the Spark but a lot cheaper

Having a tiny drone like the Nano Qç H111 is fun to get to grips with flying a drone although it could be frustrating at first. With drones like the DJI spark you can get the drone to take off automatically and it keeps itself in place using GPS, onboard cameras, sensors and more. If you lose control with a spark you just let go of the controls. With the Q4 H111 you you have to compensate and counteract the issue.

 

At 30CHF you’re not taking a big financial risk and props are available if you break them.

 

From Grächen to Zermatt via the longest suspension bridge: part two
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From Grächen to Zermatt via the longest suspension bridge: part two

Byrichard

From Grächen to Zermatt via the longest suspension bridge: part two

 

When you wake up in the Europahütte and look down you can see the span of the longest suspension bridge in the morning shade of the mountains. It’s at this moment that people like me think “shame, not ideal for pictures”. My advice is to plan the day of hiking so that you arrive at the bridge when it’s lit by the sun to get good images. Plan to arrive in the afternoon. I’d be tempted to start from Zermatt if I did this hike again.

Six minutes to cross

When I crossed the bridge it took about six minutes slowing down occasionally to look at the view. It’s stable and hardly swings. I was able to walk with a camera in one hand without holding on to the cable. It’s nothing like via ferrata monkey bridges and others. If you’re used to via ferrata bridges then this one is tame. The Ladders of Death and other via ferrata are more impressive. I’d compare it to the bridge above Saillon but much bigger.

You can see that the bridge is solidly anchored into the mountain on both ends. It’s a mere 86 meters off the ground and when you walk out and look down you can see the tops of trees like a paraglider would see them. It’s a nice taste of the world as seen from a paraglider.

A Walk in the woods

Most of the hike on the other side is through pine forest with some exposed bits where you can look up and see a glacier and streams flowing as well as waterfalls. At one point you pass above a nice gorge before heading back into the trees. This part of the hike is comfortable compared to the previous day. It undulates less. There is one moment where the trail is covered by reinforced concrete to protect hikers from rock fall. There are two tunnels through which to walk. Between the two tunnels, you can see damage created by large boulders. In one case the reinforced concrete is buckled. at another section the concrete has been pushed down vertically. For a brief moment you go back into the trees and head upwards again. Saplings have had time to grow in this section, implying that rockfalls have not occurred for a few years.

There is a prairie with warnings of active rockfall and at this segment of the hike bunkers have been dug into the side of the mountain. If you hear or see rocks falling you can shelter here until the danger has passed.

Zermatt

I feel that Zermatt should have many more solar panels on roof buildings than it has. After decades of electric cars and horse drawn carriages you’d expect them to seize the opportunity to generate and use their own power.

 

From Grächen to Zermatt via the longest suspension bridge: part one
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From Grächen to Zermatt via the longest suspension bridge: part one

Byrichard

Hiking from Grächen to Zermatt via the longest Suspension bridge is an interesting two-day hike. It provides you with views of glaciers, boulder fields, scree slopes and more. It also provides you with the opportunity to cross a suspension bridge that takes six minutes.

Hiking up from Grächen

The hike up from Grächen takes you up through a forest. You go through a forest and there is a stream to your left and the nice landscape to your right. The hike up is easy.

As I hike with a water filter I like to get water straight from glaciers when I can. I gathered water from the glacier. It tastes good and it’s fresh. Gathering water from this point is easy.

From this cirque you climb up through some more trees and eventually you get to a nice view point from which you can see the landscape. This provides a good point for a snack and rest.

[vrview img=”https://www.main-vision.com/richard/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/export_1503909534859.jpg” width=”500″ height=”500″ ]

Use mouse to look around image above. (360 image)

Many years ago the glacier reached down into the valley below. You can clearly see the depth of the former glacier. At this point you are above the tree line. You begin to walk on bare rock. The slopes get steeper and you are more exposed.

One segment of this hike crosses a zone of active rock falls. When we were walking here we heard a loud noise that sounded like thunder or a jet. After a few seconds we saw large rocks falling down the slope and bouncing. Where they hit the ground clouds of dirt and dust erupted. It was too far away for me to get good video footage. At this moment we were more attentive. If you look up you see that massive rocks get loose and fall. Look at the contrast between the sign post and the boulders. You need to scramble and climb over rocks and navigate your way towards safety.

The dangerous zone in context

The dangerous zone takes a few minutes to cross and there are big rocks behind which you could try to shelter during a rock fall but the best option is to spend as little time as possible in the dangerous section. Rock falls are usually due to hikers, rain and ice formation. When rock falls are common you see that there is no moss and no trees grow. Later we crossed over boulder fields where trees and moss were growing. The Europahütte is built in an old boulder field overlooking the bridge.

Fractals

In one of the Coastline documentaries I watched a while ago, they said that if you measure the coastline to within one metre you get one distance and if you measure the same coastline to within 30 centimetres or less you would get a much higher figure. During the last few kilometres, this was clearly evident. On the GPS the two or three kilometres were the last two or three kilometres for a long time. The terrain undulates quite a bit and there are many nooks and crannies. In a straight line the distance was 1.6km but in real terms, the distance was closer to three or four kilometres.

Until this hike, I was used to circular rather than linear hikes. Most of the hikes start in one point and go around to another. When you look at the route track for both days of hiking they go in a relatively straight line.

 

 

Caught in a hailstorm 200 meters from the peak
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Caught in a hailstorm 200 meters from the peak

Byrichard

A few days ago a group of us were caught in a hailstorm 200 metres from the peak. When we were approaching the summit we aimed to climb clouds came in and covered the peak and rain fell. At this moment we had doubts about going on. Half an hour later the clouds had gone, we could see the summit and so we started for the summit. As we climbed up the conditions were good. There was a strong wind As we got within two-three hundred metres from the top the wind picked up and we could hear lightning several seconds away. At this point, we slowed our climb.

As I looked behind I could see the clouds coming in fast and as I looked the other way I could see the clouds come that way too. By this point the wind was strong and the sky became dark with the clouds we were in. It started to rain and then hail. At first, it was a few very small hailstones but within a minute or two they became large enough to become painful through a cap and a rain jacket hood. We sheltered against rocks to minimise what was exposed to the weather.

The intensity of the hail increased and as I started to feel pain I hitched my hiking bag over my head, shielding as much as I could beneath it. As I did this I looked out and it looked like someone was throwing buckets of hailstones. I could feel my trousers getting drenched and my hands got very cold. The wind shifted and the hailstones started to pummel my back and I stayed sheltered. It was an uncomfortable situation to be in. Water was running from my trousers into my shoes and my feet were soaked.

When the hail started to subside I stood up and we started to head down. I looked up. One person from the group was rushing down and I decided to descend as well for a bit. I couldn’t see the person who was leading the group so I decided to wait. The storm seemed to have passed and I chose to wait. When he came down I blew into my hands vigorously, warming them up again.

Diving in cold lakes I grew used to having cold hands so I did what I always did. I warmed them up again. This was a mild cold. After some dives, I had such cold hands that they hurt so badly that I was close to tears. In this scenario, I was just uncomfortable.

The surface was white with hailstones, as if it had just snowed. The leader did come down, smiling. By this point it was an adventure. The concern we had from being in such a situation became amusement at having experienced extreme weather. It’s the first time that we had been caught in a hail stone after years of hiking in the mountains. I almost always carry my rain equipment when I’m hiking for just such an occurrence but usually, it’s just weight that I carry in case it is required.

 

Your own Waze driving directions
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Your own Waze driving directions

Byrichard

Your own Waze driving directions

You can now record your own Waze driving directions. Instead of using pre-determined voices you can record a number of pre-determined phrases and use them for when you are driving. Recording and using your recording is easy.

Setting it up

In the settings menu go to voice directions, click on record new voice, name the voice and then you can record Start of Drive messages, Distances, Instructions, Reports and Other. Each instruction can be up to 6 seconds in duration. Simply click the red record button, record the phrase and then listen to it. Once you have recorded the first clip you can save the new voice.

Multiple languages

It is possible to record multiple languages. Simply go to settings, general and language. Select the language you want to record in and then repeat the setting it up instructions. The phrases will be provided in the language of your choice. As I speak English and French I can record instructions in both languages.

Friends and family

If you don’t like your own voice you can get friends and family to record their voices. You could use one voice for driving to work, another for driving with friends and a third one to keep children entertained in the back. You can also share these recordings publicly for other people to use. If you’re a Vlogger or podcaster this is one way to grow your audience.

 

Long trips and frequent GPS use

When you go on long trips and use the GPS frequently the default voices can be tedious. The ability to record the voice of your choice is a nice addition. For three or more hours you can hear the voice of a friend or family member. It can become a source of entertainment. I often drive with the GPS silenced to avoid pestering passengers. With the correct voice, you could leave vocal directions on.