Electro-dance yodelling and other Valais videos

Byrichard 10 June 201712 June 2017

Reading Time: < 1 minute

This yodelling video is currently the number one trending video on youtube. I am unclear on whether it is for Switzerland or a bigger region. A small tractor is driving up a Swiss Alpine road with a group of yodelers sitting in a trailer. A car with Ma Cherie playing on the radio overtakes and the yodelers start to yodel the song. This video is on the Canton de Valais Youtube account.

Hydroelectric Power

Sixty percent of the of hydroelectric power produced in Switzerland comes from Valais with its 26 dams of which La Grande Dixence is one. They have French, English and German versions of this video.

From one side of the lake to the next by Pedalo

To keep the theme of renewable energy we have another project, to cross the lake in a solar powered Pedalo. It’s in French. I thought it was a project with an environmental goal at first.

Flying over Valais

Continuing with the theme of environmentally friendly activities Parapente is another. It’s a nice way to see such a pleasant landscape, especially if you find ascending air currents that prolong the flight.

Skydiving without the parachute

A few weeks ago after the Via Ferrata de la Farinetta near Saillon, I posted an image or two to Instagram and RealFly Sion liked the image. They’re the first indoor Sky diving simulator in Switzerland. It provides people with the opportunity to try skydiving without freefalling thousands of metres. This is an experience I would eventually like to try. I’m used to having the sensation of flying in a similar position underwater so trying it in a strong current of air would be fun.

random | Video

High Definition Pleasure

Byrichard 21 January 2009

I love high definition because it reminds me of those massive paintings you see in art galleries. You know the ones. It’s those that have things happening in different parts. Look to the top right and you see one set of people, look at the centre of the image and you notice something slightly different. Look to the right of there and yet another story is told.

That’s because high definition is a large canvas where everyone that appears in the shot tells a story. Look at that shot. You see Obama in the foreground and you see the faces behind. You see the family, you see the faces of those that are having a good time, those that are there because they have to be and more.

It’s also about eavesdropping in the visual sense of the word. You look at the action in the foreground but you can also look at the book shelf, you can see which titles are present. You can see the marks on the walls. You can see that person sitting, and from the facial features see whether they are tired or full of energy.

I just love high definition. I’ve been watching high definition content and I must admit that documentary is the type of content that may be the most fascinating. You see reconstructions of historical battles, background actions and it’s just a full image. If it was audio it would be high fidelity. It’s just complete.

It doesn’t require fast cutting, it doesn’t require close ups. What it does require is a process of thinking of how to provide a frame, an image, a canvas that’s interesting to look at. It’s getting closer to photography in a sense.

Swiss walks

Almost Linear Walks

Byrichard 29 January 2024

Twice in the last two weekends I have done linear rather than circular walks. By linear I don’t mean that I walked from A to B. I mean that I started walking along a loop but when I saw that the routes I wanted to walk were either crowded by couples or people with dugs I will either turn around, or walk across a field to a parallel path that is less crowded.

Busy Weekends

Yesterday I went for my walk. I don’t like walking on weekends, especially sunny warm weekends because that’s when people who don’t walk alone are walking their dogs or with others. It reminds me of my solitude. I also got into the habit of avoiding people during the pandemic, and the pandemic never ended, so I never went back to walking the same paths as others.

Walking Fast

I walk fast, very fast. Nothing says that I have to walk a loop for every walk. Plenty of people walk outwards, along one path, and walk along the same path. Their walks are just a straight line, back and forth. I just got into the habit of walking loops because loops are quite a bit longer than linear walks. They’re also more interesting.

The need for an Easier Walk

The thing I don’t consider enough is fatigue. I believe that I build up fatigue, from walking up to eight kilometres a day, every single day. I could have walked my ten kilometre loop yesterday but I didn’t feel that I had the energy. It’s when you’re tired, and need a rest day that it’s good to go back and forth, rather than push. I still got 10,000 or more steps and I still walked further than most people. It’s just that it wasn’t much by my standard. A rest day is one where I go for a slightly shorter walk than usual.

The Lure of the Project

It’s not just that it’s the weekend, that makes me want to skip my walk. It’s also that I’m task driven. I am currently working on consolidating all of my media drives but this is time consuming, and every time I leave it unattended a messsage pops up, that I need to agree to, before it continues working. If I go for a one and a half hour walk and a message pops up ten minutes into my walk, when I am not there to agree, then the system waits for my return, and I’m stuck with one hour and 20 minutes of transfers.

If I followed my key desire I would just skip the walk but the walk is important for my eyes. They need to focus into the distance, and I need to stay healthy.

And Finally

If my habits weren’t so consistent veering from them would be normal. It is because I am consistent that I feel bad for turning around, rather than walking my usual loop. Fitness wise it’s still a one hour walk, but it’s just shorter than if I walked my loop.

Today is a weekday so I will do my normal walk loop.

environmentalism | Swiss walks

Twenty One Thousand Five Hundred Steps and A Wind That Plays The Harmonica

Byrichard 13 March 202313 March 2023

Today I could have taken the scooter to some shops but I went for a walk. The result of that walk is that I reached twenty one thousand five hundred steps. I often take a lot of steps per day. I wish I was walking somewhere more interesting than in circles.

According to Sports tracker my daily workouts saved 4.74 kilograms of CO2 this month.

I was amused during this walk. The wind is so strong at the moment that as I tried to play the Harmonica as I walked into the wind I found that the wind itself was playing my harmonica. If I blew then I won, but if I drew then I was competing against the wind. Boring people get wind chimes. I think that people should get harmonicas instead of wind chimes. Wind chimes are audio kitsch. Harmonicas are not, because they’re rarer.

https://youtu.be/7E9ZljSImGY

This recording is from yesterday’s walk in the wind rather than today’s. The audio was recorded from the airpods, I think. I wasn’t sure you would hear the harmonica over the sound of the wind but it worked.

The wind has to be going at, at least, 25km/h if I remember correctly for the reeds to resonate enough to make noise.

In other news I have read more than once that trawlers are now trawling for krill within superods of whales. I read a few days ago about how fishermen are hoovering the sea of krill to feed farmed salmon. Humans are destroying the sea to such a degree that they are now hoovering up krill, leading to whales and other mammals to starve. We should not be wasting money and fuel to farm something in a juvenile state. It’s bad enough that humans destroy other parts of the marine food chain but this is a step too far.

As a diver people always asked “But what is there to see when you dive” and the truth is “nothing, because of overfishing, in Swiss lakes and the mediterranean. The paradox is that with a marine reserve aquatic life comes back and thrives quite easily. People fly to Fiji and other locations to see plenty of fish but if Europeans, and others, worked to preserve their marine diversity, through marine parks then we would have more fish to see underwater. The marine eco-system needs us to leave it alone, to recover, so that fish reach maturity, so that we see large whales, fish and more.

Swiss walks

The Solitaire Puzzle

Byrichard 2 June 20232 June 2023

Recently I rediscovered my love of the game solitaire. It is the game we played on windows 3.1 and other windows operating systems, up to iOS and more. Solitaire is a simple game to play on a mobile phone, ipad or computer, whether laptop or desktop.

I have found that a game of solitaire can last from two to four minutes between deal and win. It’s the type of game that takes a lot of focus when you’re learning to play it as a child. As an adult though I find that within milliseconds I make the decisions and move on to the next one.

The paradox of solitaire is that it’s an old and simple game. Is the card red or black. Is there somewhere I can place the card. If not then I just deal, and deal, until I can. The more you play the quicker you recognise whether an opportunity exists or not. That’s why it becomes a relaxing thing to do, whilst watching television, or listening to something.

The paradox of Soliaire is that such an old and simple game, is, in many ways more compelling than the games that require you to watch adverts every 30 seconds or so, depending on how quickly you fail, or succeed at a task. It’s the type of game you can play, fully focused, or as a distraction, and succeed.

I have played plenty of modern mobile phone games and it’s the one that I gravitate towards now, because it’s the one that costs the least, and forces me to see the least adverts. It’s also the one that doesn’t require me to wait for three hours for A to b ready, before being able to do c, before completing task D.

I think Solitaire is a great little game to play during our free time.

social conscience | Via Ferrata

Day 54 Of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – The Via Ferrata Season Resumes on Monday

Byrichard 8 May 2020

The Via Ferrata Season resumes on Monday with La Via Farinetta reopening. This news came via the Via Farinetta Saillon official page, as seen with the Facebook embed below.

Bonne nouvelle! La Via sera ouverte à partir ce lundi 11 mai ??

Néanmoins nous vous rendons attentifs sur les instructions des autorités.

N’hésitez pas à nous partager vos photos.
Prenez soin de vous!

Posted by Via Farinetta Saillon Officiel on Thursday, 7 May 2020

I’m happy with the news. I won’t rush to climb though. I’d rather wait for two or three weeks and see what happens. If no one gets sick then we can start climbing again. If Décathlon does open I can get gloves that cover fingertips to be safe.

I have altered the route I usually walk because cows are in one of the fields I like to walk through. The alternate route requires walking along a road, so it’s less pleasant because there are a greater number of people to avoid.

In the picture above you would never know that there is a path that you can walk along. It’s only because one day I saw people walking from the other direction that I decided to investigate. If you walk closer you see that the gap is large enough for people to pass, as in the featured image. Even when you know where it is it’s easy to miss.

It’s VE day, and the poppies are out.

I saw a flower I wasn’t familiar with and when I looked closer to take pictures I noticed that these were strawberry plants. The season for strawberries is almost here.

Strawberry flowers

I didn’t eat any because they’re not ripe. They’re still green, and they’re on a farm, not wild. For wild ones we have to wait until we get to the mountains again.

Climbing | Documentary | Rock climbing

Documenting climbing feats

Byrichard 23 November 201823 November 2018

Documenting climbing feats is an interesting challenge because you deal with issues of accessibility, projects that can last for months or even years and in some cases you’re dealing with the prospect of the climber understanding the problem, and then achieving his goal. For two or three years I really explored ideas for a climbing documentary before losing steam. My interest in the topic was still there but I couldn’t think of whom to put in front of the camera.

In my free time I have watched a lot of documentary films about climbing. Some are short, filmed over just a few hours and others are about longer duration projects that can last for a week or two. When I heard that Alex Honnold was free soloing El Cap I didn’t realise all of the preparation that he had been through. It’s only after watching his TED talk that I understood and my respect for his process grew.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iM6M_7wBMc

I like his TED talk because he really goes into detail about his preparation. You see that it is a process that takes years. Moves are practiced over and over until they are perfect. This is repeated for every pitch. Nothing is left to chance.

Aside from the mental preparation of the climber there is also the process that the cinéma verité crew must go through. In the documentary that I have included below you learn about the questions of ethics that are posed. Questions such as “how do we film this without distractions, how do we film this without endangering his life, how do we make this as safe as possible. The answer is using professional climbers and friends as camera crew. People that know the sport know when to be quiet and what move to expect next.

It’s interesting that in this feature they discuss the use of remote cameras for one or two sections, so that Alex feels alone and focused on the task at hand. Remote cameras on a cliff hundreds of metres off of the ground.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-wjmIFlnNo

If a documentary is well made, like The Dawn Wall was, then you watch a documentary on a niche topic without growing bored or distracted. If it well filmed then it is as complete as a book. A well made documentary is as complete as a book.

The beauty over documentary films, as opposed to news coverage is that documentaries can be relevant to a small niche of people rather than cater to the lowest common denominator. This is especially true in an age where documentaries can be seen at film festivals, specialist events, offered as videos on demand and more. Keep in mind that in 2020 climbing will be an Olympic sport and that in this context documentaries that are made about climbers are going to attract an ever-growing audience. What is niche today will appeal to a wider audience tomorrow.

Two years ago I volunteered at the Festival Du Film Alpin and I was really happy to watch a genre, that until then I had seen mainly on youtube appear on a big screen with a large audience. Recently I was at the Magnetic Film premiere and this was an interesting experience and last night I was at Pathé Balexert, a mainstream cinema watching a documentary about climbing. The next step would be for one of these documentaries to be screened on an IMAX screen.