Cascada
Kayaking over waterfalls, camera operators hanging from ropes to get the shot. Spectacular images.
In August of this year I will be at FIFAD as a volontaire. FIFAD stands for Festival International du Film Alpin Des Diablerets. It’s the international Alpine Film Festival of the Diablerets. I want to participate at this event for three main reasons.
The first of these is that I have a passion for the documentary film genre and adventure films. I really enjoyed going to Montagne en Scène a few weeks ago and I expect to enjoy having the freedom to watch certain of the films at this event.
The second reason I want to go as a helper is that every time I have applied to help at an event I have got something out of it. I have built my confidence. I have met interesting people and I have found new and interesting ideas. In this case I hope to view a number of the films.
The third reason is that I will have an opportunity to spend a week in the mountains once again. I have frequently been to Diablerets for hikes and just once to enjoy a via ferrata. This time I will get to stay for a few extra days and learn to appreciate the town differently. I will have my 360 camera and via ferrata gear with me. Time to ride a tyrolean in 360 right? I hope it won’t rain too heavily. People told me they got wet last time they went under the waterfall.
When I watch an interesting film or hear someone talk about an interesting topic I will try to take notes and write related blog posts. It’s good to share the knowledge and passion with you.
Getting up Getu is short documentary climbing video about Alex Honnold and Felipe Camargo climbing a beautiful roof climb. The most spectacular aspect of this video is the size of the arch that they are climbing. In two or three shots you see the size of the rock formations compared to the climbers. The people look tiny.
The rock formations that droop down from the ceiling look interesting. The climbing at this location ranges from 5a to 9c according to one source I skimmed through. There are 250 routes to choose from so this is ideal for a great number of climbers. This was the 2011 location for the Pezl Roctrip.
Getu looks like a beautiful area in china with interesting rock formations, arches and much more. The video below provides you with a glimpse of what else there is to see in this region. It is in the Guizhou province of china and the nearby city is Anshun.
from Ryan Deboodt on Vimeo.
It’s kind of like one big double-edged Jian. On the one hand, the country is somewhat of a political and economic threat to the United States and our international prosperity. But on the other, it has the Getu Valley, a dramatic stomping ground of limestone cliffs and arch formations that promise to enrapture even the most seasoned spidermen and monkey boys.
Source: Travelmint.com
According to a CNN article climbers have been enjoying this location for generations. As I explored this topic further, to find video or more detailed information I came across this:
Dangling from slippery cave walls 100 meters up from the floor below, Luo Dengping maneuvers across the steep rocks and crags in a dramatic high-wire climbing act to the amazement of spectators below.
Luo, known locally as “Spiderwoman”, is the only female member of a troupe of climbers who entertain visitors to the Getu River Scenic area in Guizhou, with their death-defying acts of high-altitude bravery on a daily basis. Source
If I find some videos of traditional climbing from this site I will share them at a later date.
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.
Today I drove for twelve hours with hardly any breaks and finished two books. Twilight of Democracy and Almost Human.
These were good books to read during a drive because they are both entertaining and informative. They are also well read. I think my day of rest yesterday helped too.
12 hrs, three countries, 1200+kilometres and I felt comfortable almost the entire time. I did see a scene in a cafe that reminded me that I am tired of solitude, but pandemics are not a good time to break out of solitude.
If the drive felt like this more often then I would make the trip more often. This is how I expect a long drive to feel.
Yesterday I looked at the wind, and when I saw that it was coming from the east I decided to cycle into it, for the outward journey, and back, with it, on the journey back. Originally my plan was to cycle to Rolle and to turn around but the plan changed. I was cycling and I overtook a woman. I like to challenge myself to overtake everyone. I especially like to overtake everyone, as a personal challenge, until I am too tired.
A little later I checked behind me and I saw a cyclist drafting behind me and I thought, “will he overtake and will we take turns drafting for each other.” but the person never did. I struggled hard, against the wind at moments. I was still comfortable but I could feel fatigue growing after Rolle. I could feel myself slow, but still no overtaking. Eventually I indicated that I was turning left, to head upwards and I turned around.
The person that had drafted behind me for half an hour was the girl/woman I had overtaken. I thought I was being drafted by a lazy man, but in reality I was being a gentlemanly wind plough for another cyclist. I wish I had known, I would have continued the ride.
In a different age I would have decided to continue, and had a conversation. We are in the pandemic age, and we know that men talking to women they do not know, is easily construed as worthy as trouble, so not worth the danger.
On the flipside I found that I love the concept of cycling with a woman, of either us being the remora, whilst the other makes it easier for the other. I am infatuated with the idea of cycling activities with women as company, as I was for climbing, hiking and via ferrata. So in reality I haven’t changed. Just the sport has.
Although it was a strenuous bit of riding with an anonymous person taking advantage to make less effort behind me, this was the most intimate moment of this pandemic. A full half hour with a stranger, with barely a word exchanged. A “good continuation” when I changed course, but that was it. The pandemic has made life like this for celibate people who are careful not to get or spread covid.
We now have years of solitude under our belt. Our idea of intimacy is so simplified that a shared bike ride with no exchanged words, becomes a “shared experience”. My ambitions are so much lower now. A bike ride in silence has become enough,
The pandemic will not end, and I am impatient for the next experience like this. I enjoyed the experience, and the conviviality of a shared bike ride.
Back to the main reason for this blog post. If you cycle along the lake and climb from the lake road to Aubonne, the ride is more gentle and pleasant. The part after the arboretum is more demanding and drivers behave like idiots so it’s worth being wary of them. Once at the top the ride down is nice. Ride past Signal de Bougy, turn left and that’s where the nice downhill section starts.
My loop is around fourty eight kilometres.