Category: Swiss walks
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Thinking of the One Hour Workout and the Apple Watch
Reading Time: 4 minutesRecently someone said that the Apple watch is seamlessly integrated and easy to use. I never considered its simplicity of use because I grew up playing with GPS devices from the etrex 32 to the Nokia N95 8GB to several dozen watches and devices over the decades. As a result the difficulty…
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Watching Rivers Dry Up
Reading Time: 2 minutesIn February I walked or ran along the Asse river that runs from the Jura down towards Nyon and it was flooding. Walking paths had to be diverted and trees found themselves surrounded by water like individual islands. I walked by the same river during my daily walk yesterday and the opposite…
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The Facebook Hyperlink Silo
Reading Time: 3 minutesThis morning I saw two posts commenting on how Facebook was paywalling external hyperlinks. In order to link to an external site Facebook is now adding payed tiers. Pay one amount, and you can post more hyperlinks, pay another and you can pay fewer. Years ago people spoke of the social media…
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The Article in comments Fad
Reading Time: 2 minutesContinuing on from yesterday’s theme of publishers harming themselves through their behaviour today I want to comment on the fad of adding hyperlinks to comments rather than directly into a post. The idea is that you can use the image you want, and by clicking to see comments facebooks counts this as…
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Tabloids, Human Writers, and AI Summaries
Reading Time: 3 minutesYesterday I read what some might think is good news. Tabloids in England are firing human writers because Google AI summaries are undercutting human reader traffic to their sites. To this I have two comments. Before every newspaper was pay-walled I would browse to The Guardian, the Independent, Le Monde, Le temps,…
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The Ironic Fuel Crisis
Reading Time: 3 minutesThere is a sign in Grens that recommends for people not to use their cars on Sunday. It dates back to last century. In the 1970s during a previous oil crisis the motorway was shut in Switzerland, and people played tennis. We are now in yet another fuel crisis and I see…
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Thoughts on Books I Didn’t Like
Reading Time: 3 minutesLast night I was at a book about “The God of Small Things” and I’d be tempted to say that I hated the book for the same reasons that I don’t like Jane Austen books, that I didn’t enjoy Blindness and other books. I don’t know whether readying it, rather than listening…
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On Desktops, Smartphones and Volunteering
Reading Time: 3 minutesYet another article has been written about how smartphones are a trap we built for ourselves by VOX. The article is paywalled so I didn’t read it but it’s worth commenting on the headline. This weekend I was in Divonne volunteering at the Triathlon de Divonne and during this time I was…
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The Sub-Optimal E-Scooter
Reading Time: 2 minutesMany years ago, I couldn’t drive for a month, so I saw this as a brilliant opportunity to take a break from driving. To replace the car I used a foot scooter, a bus, and one or two trains. In the process I had a tremendous amount of fun. In contrast, more…
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The EV Habit to Pick Up
Reading Time: 3 minutesIt’s a very easy habit to pick up, once you find an affordable EV. The EV habit makes tremendous sense. When I learned to drive petrol was about 1.21 CHF per litre, and when I was driving the most it went to about 1.71 CHF per litre. Recently, due to recent electoral…