Looking between rows of corn

Flitting Between Water Bottles and Rows of Corn

Byrichard
Reading Time: 2 minutes

I thought that when I bought two cycling water bottles and two normal day bottles I would be done, but then I found a nalgene bottle for a reasonable price, and then someone mentioned drinking from a steel container, rather than aluminium so I was distracted and tempted. I did tell myself that this would replace my habit of drinking other types of drinks. I thought “Stop with these drinks for three weeks per bottle and you amortise the cost”.

It goes deeper than that. If I stop drinking the two drinks I normally drink, then I will save money within three weeks, and not have to spend it again for weeks at a time. It may be materialist to want more water bottles than I can use in a week, but at least it’s a lot less plastic to be recycled on Monday afternoons. I don’t mind recycling. I just hate that there are set times when it is possible. I hate that it has to be scheduled, rather than spontaneous.

If I have less aluminium and PET then my trips to recycle are diminished. In reality my goal is just to switch the budget from one luxury to another, without having a new expense. If I find that I am happy with the new system then that is all the better.

Temptation 1 – to replace the half litre bottle that I use daily, because it’s easier to clean

Temptation 2 – to replace the 1l bottle I have used for over ten years, because it is easier to clean, and because it should be easier to carry.

If we were not in a pandemic, and if we were not in a society where people still do not wear their masks properly, and where people respect the 2 meter safety distance then I would go and look at the products in person, and probably lose interest. It’s because we’re in a long protracted pandemic that I am growing curious about such things. It is a coping mechanism. As dull and boring as it may sound.

A few years ago I looked at mobile phones, new watches, climbing gear etc. Now I’m looking at water bottles. I like water bottles. It is something that you use every day, from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep.

Rows of Corn

Have you ever considered that we always look at rows of corn from the same angle. We always look at them along the line of plantation so all we see is a wall of corn. Today during the walk I saw that some corn had been cut to reveal the seed rows of corn and it’s interesting to see the cistern like rows of columns of corn plants.

Rows of corn
Rows of corn

It’s interesting to see that corridor down which animals and other small creatures can run along. You never think of how distinct it is. You always associate corn fields with a jumble of corn, like a forest of trees. Unlike in old films and cartoons this is highly organised, so walking in one direction is easy, but not perpendicularly.

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A Forgotten Apple Event

A Forgotten Apple Event

Byrichard

On the Twelfth of September Apple held an event to promote their new iPhone devices and I completely forgot to watch and spoof what they were selling. For years now I have had little to no interest in new Apple devices and watches for a very simple reason. They’re extremely expensive, compared to alternatives.

Years ago I bought a new iphone every year, from the 4 to the 4S to the SE but after that I stopped until I bought an 8+ for drone flying as it had a bigger screen before reverting back to the Iphone SE(second generation). I heard on a podcast that the original SE was the best low budget iPhone so that’s why I took it. I took the second Gen SE because it had the smallest screen.

Too Big To Hold and Use One Handed

The problem with almost all iPhones is that they are large, fragile, and hard to use one handed. This means that you need big pockets, big hands, and a protective case to keep them safe. Small and elegant phones are more interesting. They’re easier to hold, carry, and keep safe. A phone that you can use one handed with ease, is more useful.

Incremental Progress

When the first iPhones came out every new device was priced at an interesting point and the tech was innovative. Now you spend 1000 USD for an incrementally better phone. According to GSM Arena it’s not worth buying the iphone. I don’t want to spend so much money on a device, that if, dropped once, needs to have the screens replaced. The front and back glass can shatter after a single drop.

The Ultra 2

Some people will see the Ultra 2 and desire it. I don’t. Apple watches are fragile. I broke one indoor climbing. I wore Suunto watches rock climbing in the mountains and barely have scratches to show for scraping the watch on real rocks, every weekend. Another issue is the price point. You’re paying 800 CHF for a watch that lasts 36hrs in GPS mode. For 150 CHF or so you can get the Garmin Etrex SE and track for a week, and within a few seconds you can swap the AA batteries that you can buy almost anywhere.

Planned Obscolecence

The other drawback to buying expensive Apple Watches is that if you buy one, you will want to buy the next generation, and the generation after that. It will cost 800 CHF to keep up to date. Do you want to fall down that rabbit hole?

A good App-mosphere

Of course when you’re buying an Apple Watch you’re not just paying for the watch. You’re also paying for the app-mosphere. You’re paying to have access to all of the apps that play nicely, for a fee, with the Apple watch. it’s great to have access to so many apps, but most cost 30 CHF per year, per app. That’s easily hundreds of francs.

With Garmin, Suunto, Google and Xiaomi this is included in the price of the device you wear on your wrist. I would have written Fitbit instead of Google but we know that Fitbit is on borrowed time.

Daily Charging

With the Suunto Peak 5 you charge once every few days. With the Garmin Instinct Solar you can go for weeks without charging, in summer. With the Garmin Suunto 45s you charge every two or three days. Do you want to spend 800 CHF on a watch that needs one and and half hours to charge every single day, for normal use? No other high end watch forces you to recharge so often. Batteries degrade with charge cycles, so you’re going through one charge cycle, per day.

With the Suunto D4 diving watch and Suunto D9 you would charge once every two or three years, by swapping batteries.

And Finally

Not being interested in the latest apple watches and iPhones works to my advantage. I save on time, money and desire. When innovation is not ground breaking it is easier to remain indifferent. I would be more interested in swapping the battery in the current second generation SE than in getting a new phone.

StepsApp
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StepsApp

Byrichard

Walking and taking steps could be seen as boring. It’s something we do every day, without thinking about it. At conferences we can easily take 20,000 steps a day, when we’re standing for the entire day, with barely any opportunities, or need to sit, except when eating or getting from A to B. The Steps App is a way of seeing step counts in a variety of ways.



With the insights tab you have information about your best week, month and year. It shows you theoretical distance, time spent stepping, theoretical energy burn, and floors climbed, with compatible devices. On my best week I climbed 253 floors, walked 118 km over 24hrs 39 mins and burned 6243 kcals. My best step day was on the 23rd of August 2018. I took 40,142 steps. That was a theoretical 31.3km over 6hrs 45 and 188 floors.



During my best month I walked half a million steps. 453.7km over 90hrs20, climbing 655 floors. This was my walking habit during the pandemic and the reason for such a lot of time walking wasn’t because I was doing anything interesting. It’s because we were in self-isolation and I was using the Apple Watch calories burned per day to indicate how much exercise I should do. The result is a month where I walked for three hours a day for an entire month. One could argue that this isn’t such a good memory.


Badges for Steps per day and total steps.


It’s more fun to look at the pages above. I have walked a million steps 16 times, five million, three times. I have walked at least 5000 steps 1292 times and 10,000 steps 743 times so far. This is fun because it shows how consistent my walking habit is, and how regularly I reach each goal/landmark.


Step count by year
Step count by year


The peak walking year. Five and a half million steps
The peak walking year. Five and a half million steps


And Finally


The longest streak badges
The longest streak badges


They allow you to see your longest steps, calories, distance, duration, floors and superstreak. These are both excellent and crap. Step streaks are good when you’re walking but doing no other sports. If you cycle, climb or do other sports there is a good chance that you will your streak., That’s why the steps streak is just 34 days but the distance streak is 252 days and the duration streak is 918 days, and floors is 390. If you limit yourself to steps then you can only take steps, and nothing else.


Walking Into Heavy Rain
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Walking Into Heavy Rain

Byrichard

Sometimes you end up walking into heavy rain. That’s what I did today. I looked at the weather and because it was meant to get better over the coming days I assumed that this evening it would get better. Instead, as I walked it started to rain a little more, and then a little harder, and eventually quite a bit harder. Did I get wet beyond the top layer? Nope, but my beanie got a little wet, as did my fleece. My shoes on the other hand were clean, thanks to the flow of water.


I was lucky today, because if I had set off a little later then I would have been soaked by the time I got home. I skirted the rain by an amusing amount. I could have been drenched if I had set off later. I timed my walk to avoid the sunset, so that would have helped me avoid the rain anyway. I don’t want to walk at night.


Today I walked over 18,000 steps, according to the Casio, 8800 in the morning, and another ten thousand in the evening. In the evening, as the rain started, I decided to run for one kilometre. I tracked it with the Garmin instinct and the Casio. There was no reason to track with both, except that I was curious to see the result. If you want running time step count and distance then the Casio GBD-200 is fine. If you want cadence, heart rate zones, and other data then keep with the Garmin Instinct. To boot, with the Garmin instinct you get to check the weather first, and you might not be caught out, as I was.


And Finally


I was surprised that the Casio GBD-200 doesn’t allow you to select which sport you’re doing. If you track cycling then you will screw up the data, and if you track walking you will use the watch for many more hours per week than it is planned for. I am not often confused about how I feel about a device. I wish the casio would do more, but at the same time I bought it because it does less. I’m all the more confused because according to the Apple Fitness app I stood, moved and exercised enough and now I don’t know what the source for the data was. I need to keep experimenting.

Zero Minutes Per Week on Facebook

Zero Minutes Per Week on Facebook

Byrichard

I noticed that Facebook has a way of letting you know how badly you are addicted to their website. In the process I learned that I spent zero minutes on their website this week, and one minute last week. I do not spend time on their website because it fails to provide me with a community that I want to interact with on a daily basis. There are a number of reasons for this but the key reason is that they spent so much effort trying to make the timeline more addictive that they made it repulsive.


Irrelevant Content from Algorithms


The timeline is repulsive because it shows too many adverts, whether for groups, for products, for promoted posts and more. These are irrelevant, and if shown at too high a rate they become toxic. They also stop you from seeing the content that you want to engage with, i.e. posts by friends. Facebook has become a network of strangers talking to strangers, and noise. We see others, but we are not seen. If that is toxic to me, imagine the impact on others. Instagram, too, has this flaw.


Questionable Morals


The second reason is to do with Facebook’s reputation for enabling, or at least not removing extremist content for months or even seasons. They sometimes seem to remove it once it is no longer needed, rather than when it causes the most damage.


FOMO and trolling


The two strongest push factors were FOMO and trolling. Facebook had a way of reminding us that not everyone is self isolating during this pandemic, or of reminding us that not everyone is in solitude. When you are not conversing with people, you are only seeing an idealised representation of their lives, then you begin to feel down about your own life. It makes you wish the pandemic would end, so that you could resume socialising, meeting people, and maybe even having something, other than social media, to come home to.


The second one was virulent trolling. In normal times you would put up with communities where you are being trolled because you can still plan activities in the physical world. During a pandemic however, if you get trolled you have no reason to put up with it, and a survival strategy is to leave the community. Eventually I took a serious break from twitter that has lasted for almost the entire pandemic.


Not A Social Media Detox


What I am writing about is not a social media detox. My aim is not to take a break from social media. My aim was to take a break from, and cut ties with a community that is toxic, both through the ways it pushes rubbish into your timelines, but also by the toxic people that interact on the platform. When you are flamed twice within the space of days, and when you are tired of scrolling through irrelevant content, you eventually decide that the Return on Investment, ROI, as a user, is less than it is worth to keep using a service.


I have had the same realisation with Instagram, which is part of the same problematic social network. Meta. Everything Meta touches, becomes unhealthy for users to use, and now they want to go into the metaverse. I will not use AR and VR via such a company. They do not have the required moral standards for me to trust them with something immersive.


One of the drawbacks to dumping Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and other products, is that you become disconnected from the social networks that have the biggest monopoly. If you do not use these networks you are socially excluded. Too many products are built off of Facebook’s user login system now. You lose access to some apps, web services, and to some communities. During a pandemic this contributes to the sense of isolation.


I Don’t Miss Either


I don’t miss either Facebook or Instagram because they stopped being about a network of friends years ago. They became more and more of a waste of time, and more of a way to see how I wish my life was different. That would be positive, if we were all on the same life path, but we are not, especially during the pandemic. The standard model life that we saw on Facebook and Instagram stopped being real. It became an unhealthy illusion. It also led to a sense of isolation. That sense of isolation is why a Facebook and Instagram break was needed. You don’t long for a different life every day. You can more easily live in the moment.


Very Few Interactions


One thing that hurt, when I used Facebook, but also Instagram, was seeing other people get twenty or more likes, and getting conversations started via their content. Seeing that I was being ignored was painful, but it also led me to another thought. If I am being ignored on FB and IG, where I am giving them my attention, and content for free, then I might as well give over that time to my blog, and at least this way I achieve something positive. It gets very little attention, but it is “me time” as you would see many people say. It is time that I devote to thinking, and writing. In effect I am practicing mindfulness.


A Lifestyle, Not An Addiction


For years I have argued that social media and social networks should be about a lifestyle rather than an addiction. Google and Twitter, although flawed, in some ways, do not treat us like addicts. They treat us like individuals, and the same is true of Wordpress.com. We are a community of writers and commenters, who write, and occassionally people read what we have written. Sometimes they even comment. The goal isn’t to have a conversation. The aim is to read about someone else’s experiences. The web should be a healthy place, to talk online, while waiting for another opportunity to meet offline, as it was in 2006-2007.


Recycling Without A Mask
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Recycling Without A Mask

Byrichard

Yesterday I went to recycle. Two weeks ago when I went, everyone was wearing a mask. Yesterday when I went all the masks are gone. I was the only person wearing one. Within the last day or two the Swiss government has told people that they can walk around without a mask, and enjoy summer. They said this at the same time as there was an increase of new COVID-19 cases. Today the number of new infections has clearly started to rise. This is true of England, France, Spain and other countries.


European leaders decided to relax COVID restrictions just at the time when countries like Switzerland were getting within easy reach of COVID-zero. COVID-zero would mean zero infections for two weeks in a row. This would give us back real freedoms. Unfortunately, the Swiss government, and others, do not care about eradicating the disease. They care about not being booted out of power.


On the RTS website, written in French they wrote that the Delta variant is increasing quite strongly.


After weeks of new cases per day dropping the number of new cases has started to increase again.


https://twitter.com/mvankerkhove/status/1412330474014490625
WHO information about the increase in new cases globally and by region.


For weeks now I have been tweeting the pandemic isn’t over, as I see people behave as if it was. It is frustrating to see how people feel that the pandemic can be turned off from one day to the next. Maria Van Kerkhove tweeted: The Pandemic is not over, Be Smart, Play safe.


https://twitter.com/mvankerkhove/status/1412330488367357953


The pandemic, that I thought would be over in June 2020 is alive and well in July 2021 and people, who could have learned lessons from the last 470 days of pandemic seemed to have learned nothing. Add to this that governments are not bothered with eradicating the virus, and we are in a bizarre scenario, where people falling sick is acceptable. We are in an absurd scenario.

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