They announced rain and storms but we hardly ever get either in this part of Switzerland. I wasn’t going to use this blog for short posts but I can’t focus.
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.
The weather was cold and cloudy this lunchtime so going up to the mountains for lunch was feasible. If the restaurant had been filled with people, and if we had shared a table with others, then I would have skipped and driven home. Luckily the road was closed to go up to the mountains so that stopped some people from going up. There were also the benefits of clouds and cold air temperatures. Combined these things meant that the restaurant was less tempting for large crowds. We ate a fondue.
View of La Dole from the other side
I did not plan to go up. It was spontaneous, and I had my own car, so that if I saw that it was too busy I could turn back or walk to the summit. We’re still in a pandemic, so if I feel a risk is too great I bail.
Today is interesting because it seems quieter than it should be. The restaurant was quieter, but the villages and other places are quieter too. It’s as if people are hibernating or hiding. I saw that all the cars are goine from the garage for example.
In theory the entire reason for getting a Roomba is to let it do the vacuuming and forget about it. In reality I always feel the desire to watch roombas as they do their work. It doesn’t make any sense, because the entire goal of a roomba is that it automates what many people find to be a chore. Vacuuming can be quite boring and quite frustrating, especially during the muddy seasons.
During the season I often need to vacuum every day, sometimes even several times a day. Mud likes to get on shoes but brushing doesn’t get it off. Walking does. The g-forces that we generate when our feet hit the ground loosen the mud, especially the next day, as we’re running down the stairs to exit the building.
Wet mud is well behaved. It sticks in place, and it’s hard to remove. Dry mud tends to fall off in clumps. With the roomba that dried mud is easy to clean up. The robot will take care of picking up every last bit of mud.
The paradox of watching a Roomba is that you see bits of dirt and you think “go and get that bit of mud, stop ignoring it. Stop going back over the same spot six times. Of course, by going over the same spot six times a roomba picks up all the dander and fluff from our clothing, as well as human dust, hair and more. It really is methodical.
What looks clean to us, as humans who vacuum is still dirty, and a roomba will pass over and over until everything is gone. What may seem clean, when you look at it by eye is still dirty. It’s just that it is so sparse that we don’t detect it by eye. It’s when we check the roomba filter that we see how dirty the floor was. It’s when we see a big quantity of fluff in the bin.
Yesterday as I watched a brand new roomba clean the floor I expected that I would see dried mud but I saw as much dander as if I had run a clothes drier through three or four loads without cleaning the filters. Don’t forget to clean filters after every run. That dander is a fire risk.
I think that Roomba are expensive but when you compare their price to normal vacuum cleaners they are reasonably priced. You could pay the same for a human guided vacuum cleaner but by doing this you would not be as methodical about vacuuming. As a human we are guided by what we see. If it looks dusty we will clean. If it looks clean we won’t devote much time.
Do you have a room where the light shines in at a low angle, in the morning, or in the evening? I have noticed that if I hoovered at sunrise I can see the dirt because of its shadow. I saw this and thought at least two or three times that I should grab the opportunity to vacuum when the dust is contrasted with the surroundings. The roomba is so fastidious that time of day doesn’t matter. You can clearly see that a Roomba has been at work because the floor looks clean.
Roomba als have another advantage. they’re low to the ground so they can go under furniture that is high enough. They can go under couches and sittees but they can also go under over furniture. They can vacuum and mop places that may never be mopped or vacuumed due to these places being otherwise inaccessible.
Sometimes with a Roomba it really cleans the floor well but in vacuuming well it also highlights where you need to pass with a mop and bucket to get the floor to be perfect.With some roomba they are equipped with a small reservoir of water in which you put water and optionally soap. The roomba will then hoover with the front, and mop with the back. It isn’t over-exuberant like a human. It leaves just enough to clean, but not so much that your socks are soaked if you walk around as it mops.
And Finally
If we watch Roomba work it can be frustrating to watch as they throw dirt away from their path, or kick it to a place they cannot reach. It can also be amusing to get a roomba to vacuum in a room where tiles that were being cut generated an enormous amount of dust. In such situations Roomba become artists. Roomba are expensive and slow but they’re good at making a place look clean. With newer roombas they are quieter so you can run them while you’re around without the noise being as disruptive.
Recently I spent time on Twitter and Facebook and I was reminded of that horrible feeling you get when you’re looking for posts and tweets by friends, to interact with, and see crappy adverts instead. Imagine if you walked into a pub or conference and instead of having personal conversations you were harassed by marketers rather than human beings looking for a human connection.
The reason I dumped FaceBook and then Instagram is that I got tired of not only feeling that I wa wasting my time, whilst making myself feel lonelier, but on top of that someone else was making a profit from me being lost in the time wasting corporate social media landscape.
Twitter and People Selling Crap
Most of the stuff that is being sold via Twitter ads is crap now. You look and it’s con men trying to sell cons, from cryptocurrency, to privacy, to other crap. It’s ironic that they would sell this crap in a place where anyone with any decency, would no longer use.
It’s not the Owner, But The Spam
Of course it bother me that Facebook and Twitter are owned anc controlled by immoral people, and I could look beyond that, if I could find pleasant conversations, rather than see ads. What gets to me about social media is that it’s about making money for people that don’t value us as human beings. That’s why I switched to blogging, rather than social media. With blogging I might devote an hour to per day, but rather than make money for people who see me as an addict, I give people a reason to surf to my website. I also get to explore ideas in the process.
A Feeling of Being Used
Several times I have looked through Facebook, Instagram and Twitter timelines but I quickly become demoralised by the ads, the reminders of what my life isn’t and more. It’s not that people are using Facebook and Instagram to converse, they’re using it to broadcast. No one is listening. Everyone is being made invisible by the algorithms, and ignored by those that do see posts. For so little engagement I can write blog posts.
The Apathy of Mastodon
Two days ago noise pollution was making my afternoon hell, and I said so on social media. Rather than empathy though, I found apathy. The beauty of social media is that empathy doesn’t cost anything, whereas apathy can ruin someone’s experience. If we come to social media it’s to find empathy, or at the very least vent, and be ignored.
Networking for Projects
I see people write about using Twitter to make money from the content they create. That’s the wrong attitude. You should be making contacts to work on projects with people, rather than making money from social media. Too many people are utilitarian about social media, which is why it becomes a waste of time for human beings. When everyone is trying to sell, then no one is conversing, and without conversation a blog post would have the same impact, without enriching the wrong people.
A Reminder
I was reminded, while writing this blog post that the reason I became tired with Twitter is that people use it, and the community, rather than participate within it. People are busy promoting themselves and their ideas, without engaging, without investing time in friendships and more. The same people are on Mastodon and the Fediverse.
And Finally
There is a difference between what I want social networks to be, and what others want social networks to be. I will never find social networks that achieve what I want because society labels as social people on the web as addicts, and corporate social media profit from wasting our time in the hope that we will see more ads. I don’t use Facebook for moral reasons. The issue is that it has a monopoly so I am isolated, for not using Facebook.
Today Twitter feels just like Instagram. I know that if I spend too much time on Twitter it will become toxic, so I know I need to moderate how I use it.
Althought the Fediverse is an interesting project I think that the community is still weak. I can go for hours without my timeline refreshing, and when I do engage I am either trolled or ignored.
Some toots did well, but mostly likes and re-shares rather than conversations. What I want to find are conversations.
There are several types of people. One of them is youtubers that try and fail until they succeed, and then there are people like me, who also try and fail until they succeed. In one case the individual probably gets millions of views, and earns enough to waste hundreds of dollars per video in microtransactions, to people like me who are experimenting with Pis because it’s cheaper, once you know what you’re doing than getting a synology box.
Over a few weeks I have experimented with installing Ubuntu and Raspberry Pi OS on several Pis and then added docker containers, and tried installing straight to the system. In the process I have iterated and iterated until I developed an effective work flow. Yesterday I spent an hour or two preparing an Ubuntu SD card, snap installing Nextcloud, and then docker, and then Photoprism, Immich, Home assistant and maybe one or two other apps. I also set photoprism to boot automatically at start up. When I tried to do the same with Immich it failed. In the end I settled for a shell script, thanks to Chat GPT help.
I kept a copy of the 48 commands I got to setup the system but ignored the trial and error part, for now. Ideally I should setup a script that can do this configuration automatically. I would install ubuntu, boot it up, and then run the shell script to install what I want automatically, so that a system is quick and easy to setup.
Centralised
Initially I had one Pi per service/server. This gave me the freedom to experiment with one service/server without destroying everything else. As I began to understand how the apps/services/servers work I was able to move them together on the same machine and have them run side by side. I go from needing several Pis with dedicated roles to a single Pi that can do it all, if I feel like centralising everything. Before I centralise everything I want to be able to migrate the logs and data from several apps to a central point.
I like that Home Assistant has weather data for several weeks. Part of the learning process is learning to move data between systems without losing their history.
And Finally
By installing a system, and then re-installing it over and over I learn with each iteration, and with each iteration I see something that could be improved so I improve it. Eventually I get a work flow that is fluid and does what I want with relative ease. I kept those 48 lines of commands so that when I do this again I can refer to my “notes” rather than several pages from two or three sites, and Chat GPT. That I managed to install Immich and Homestation counts as a success, because I had tried and failed to install both of them recently.
When I neared the top of the Jura I walked through part of the forest where the smell of pines was strong. I usually associate that smell with hikes further afield and at higher altitudes. It was nice to find it so close to home. To do this walk you can set off from Nyon Train station and follow the signs with the number 5 for the Chemin des Crêtes Du Jura.
If you do this hike the right way you would start in St Cergue and walk down. I did it the other way. The first part of the walk takes you across farm roads surrounded by fields on both sides. This part of the walk is easy because it has a gentle gradient. It’s when you get to the top of Cheserex that you start to climb from the foot of the Jura upwards.
The path was overgrown, requiring me to squirrel my way through plants and move branches out of the way. The first part is not so well maintained. The signs are also harder to find. There are dozens of routes and I was induced in to taking the wrong path once or twice, taking the path for the La Barillette bike race rather than the walking trail.
I saw some forestry people at work cutting down trees by the road so I had the sound of chainsaws and falling trees as I walked up. I followed the road for a bit in the hope of finding the right trail once again and when I did I started to head straight up.
Ants, in this forest, are busy. I saw them crossing the path in a number of locations and I saw several large anthills. One of them was almost as tall as I am but much wider. I was surprised to see so much activity. The forest might be healthy.
Near the summit
The trees in this part of the forest are tall with most of the branches near the top to catch as much light as possible. This part of the walk is definitely worth seeing.
You need to cross the main road near the top and go up two or three more bends before you get to the clearing in the image above. From this clearing you get your first up-close view of La Dôle. From here the walk breaks out of the trees and you start to get a good view of the rock face.
When I went past the farm I saw calves with their mother so I walked up and looked across to see if I could walk without passing between the mothers and their calves. As I could not I decided to pass by the col to the right of La Dole and walk down from there to St Cergue. I crossed two or three more fields with cows and walked by a passage where Jean Jaques Rousseau walked in the 1770s.
The route was about 23-25km depending on the GPS and took about 5 and a half hours. I only stopped long enough to get water out of my bag or take pictures. I also lost a little time trying to find the route. I would recommend this as a convenient hike within easy reach of Geneva and Lausanne.
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