I am currently learning about Working With Service Workers. Service workers allow you to make a website faster, for those who visit a website more often, or offline, in situations where connectivity may be unreliable. Some of the code used can be found on my github page. MDN Web Docs also have useful information about working with service workers.
With service workers you can web first, retrieve from cache and stale while refresh:
With the first option you visit a website and the cache is generated in case the connection is dropped
With the Retrieve from cache it will access the files in the cache, before looking towards the web for content
In the last case the website will load the content it has but will check for new content in the background.
With these three approaches, and with some experimenting you can speed up static websites, and make others available offline if needed.
Aside from helping you to save content locally service workers can also clean up after themselves. If your website is updated or changes you can give a new archive version number and tell it to delete all the others, for your own web page. I have played with static content and will explore more.
I took some time to practice the new skills I learned in this course on my own website, on the local machine. It will take some time to learn the intricacies of how to get this to work correctly. For now I am on a learning curve.
In the process of learning about service workers I also learned about manifest.json and web app manifests. “PWAs can be downloaded in advance and can work offline, as well as use regular Web APIs.”
Today I went for one of my walks, but rather than turning East as I normally do, on that route, I went West, and as a result I went for a longer walk than usual. I too this route because I wanted to look at the books in a new phone box that was turned into a lending library.
I often say that I have too many book already, and that I don’t need to get more, and yet every single time I feel the compulsion to look at the choice, and usually want to pick up a book or two. Today was no different. I picked up quite a few books, and we will see if I get around to reading them. I think I might.
We are in the middle of a pandemic. Although my interest in books, and in drinking vessels may seem eccentric, and it is, there is rationality nonetheless. I pick up a lot of books, but I also start reading many books at a time, and leave some unfinished for weeks or months. I think that I may find the books interesting, even if I do not read them instantly. I also don’t spend money when I find free books. I only spend time and energy, and those are both used up by the walks anyway.
For drininking vessels it is absurd, in winter, when we do not get thirsty during walks, and when walks last for shorter periods of time. At the same time I suspect that if I did not have a choice of water bottles then I would quickly grow bored of drinking water and revert to Coke and Rivella.
Another thing that is not discussed, is the habit of buying bottles of coke, water and other recipients. There is also the habit of drinking hot chocolate from a machine and always using a new cup. One recent purchase is to ensure that when I am in an office again I will be able to have hot chocolate in the same recipient over and over, without filling a bin with empty paper cups.
In my experience of hiking, especially in summer, you often want at least two bottles of water, of differing sizes depending on the duration of the walk, effort, and temperature. I have one 500ml for my daily walks, one 600ml, one 750ml and two one thousand ml bottles. Those are for walking. For cycling I now have two new 500ml bottles. I have one 300ml vacuum travel mug for take away drinks and one 500ml cup. I boil water before my walk, and drink it when I need to warm up again.
When I get my 0.47ml travel mug with a screw on lid then I will have what is required for road trips. If I used the 300 or 500ml cups I would spill the liquid either on myself or in the car. With the one I just ordered I have a good option for road trips.
I did buy a lot of water bottles recently but they last for years. It is only because my 1L and 0.5l aluminium sigg bottles seem to have suffered from not being used during the pandemic, after years of loyal service before the pandemic, and because my camelbak forge was damaged by overuse that I replaced it. With the cycling water bottles I am replacing them because they always get black mould and I’d prefer not to risk my health. This time Almost everything I bought is machine washable. I will find an excuse to get new toys eventually, but for the forseeable future I should no longer have any excuse.
And in summary. This year I have spent 388 hours hiking 1929 kilometres, burning about 142,987 kcals. In total I have spent 486 hours doing sports, covering a distance of 3248 kilometres and ascended 25,708 meters. Not too lazy after all.
For the past hour or more, I’ve been listening to music and working on my dissertation and I’ve just hit 9500 words on my dissertation (disso as it’s affectionately referred to) and it feels great. I’m so happy that I have two weeks in which to proofread, re-write, and improve what I’ve written.
It’s the first time in my life that I finish the writing part of my assignment two weeks earlier than the deadline. I’m not crying victory yet (french expression: mieux vaut ne pas crier victoire), after all, I’d expect myself to do at least another ten to fifteen hours of re-writing. I still have to format the references properly and look for video captures that can help illustrate my points so that the layout earns extra points.
Reading this post you’d be led to believe that I take this work seriously, and the truth is I do. I started it last summer when I came back to London looking for work. I applied to at least twenty jobs without luck and as I was growing demoralised I dropped by the library when no one else was there and borrowed as many books as I thought I could carry without a surtax on the plane. Over the summer I worked through over twenty chapters about film theory and created a documentary over 50 pages long and 25,000 words in depth. I also watched hundreds of hours of documentaries. Aside from the website, it’s the biggest project I’ve ever taken on.
Recently a CWT Vulcan system was installed on a pipe in the building where I live and the calcar that I had watched being deposited in a kettle stopped depositing, and even started to disintegrate. Within a week, or less the calcar almost vanished.
To over-simplify it, you wrap a coil around a pipe, with an electronic ciruit board and it uses electric currents, through electrophoresis to take calcium and magnesium from complex to simple structures. In the process calcar no longer builds up. It goes a step further and cleans the calcar, as was shown by the kettle example. You can read more about the process from this source. If that’s not technical enough you can read this paper.
According to a sheet of paper the system needs two watts of power. Once it is installed you can leave it to do its work. The difference is noticeable very quickly. One test was to boil water five times in a sauce pot, so I did. I could barely see any calcium build up and when I wiped it with a cloth the small traces wiped away.
I am used to filling a kettle with water, boiling it, and making tea or coffee. I played with Moka pots to make coffee and with kettles and moka pots I saw a build up of Calcar. With water treated by the CWT Vulcan system the kettle and Moka pot clean themselves thanks to the treated water.
When you use Brita filters you need to shake them in water, and then you need to flush water through them twice, and then you can use them for a month, before repeating the process. With CWT Vulcan devices, once it’s installed you’re done, and you get softer water.
When you’re washing dishes, or rinsing glasses water drips from the glass or other container and leaves traces. With the Vulcan treated water there is no deposit left behind. Before the Vulcan water treatment system leaving a drop of water to evaporate would leave a trace of rust coloured calcar behind. I’m convinced of the value of this system within two or three tests and the company suggests six tests.
One of the tests is the rusty nail test. The problem is that I don’t know where I can find a rusty nail. The closest I come to a rusty nail is a rusty double edge shaving blade. Upon consideration I could test it with a wok that is several decades old by now. It has traces of rust, when you forget to oil it before storage.
And Finally
What I appreciate with this system is that it requires two watts of power and it does what it’s designed to do. You don’t need to replace filters every few weeks, or months and there is little to no waste. I love gadgets so I’m convinced by this solution. Originally I thought it was moronic to spend thousands of francs on a system that would then require thousands of francs per decade to keep running. With this system once it’s installed there are no, or fewer costs.
Today I looked at two of the masks I used over summer and they are both bleached by the sun. So is my hat. I normally expect things in Spain to be sun bleached, not Switzerland. The reason is simple. First, it never ever rains, and even clouds are rare today, and second, I spend an hour and a half outdoors a day walking. Plenty of time for my things to get sun bleached.
If you’re an extrovert you could go out into the street and ask people “Is the covid virus airborne” they would probably either say that they don’t know or that it isn’t. The second introvert option is just to observe people. See how many people wear their masks as moustaches, how many of them wear them as neckerchiefs, how many people observe proper social distancing. If these methods are how you determine whether people know that COVID-19 is airborne, then the answer is “very few”.
It makes you question whether self-isolation is justified. It doesn’t seem to be, because not that many people are falling sick now. There is one detail. The point of self-isolation, and the point of eradicating a disease, is that you don’t wait for things to seem safe, to resume normal life. You wait until they are. 2200 people fell sick this weekend. That’s a lot of people. That’s 733 a day. That’s an infection rate of one person every two minutes.
We are at the trough of a wave, but there is every chance that another crest is coming, and none of the barrier gestures are in place at the moment. If the virus has an opportunity it will spread quickly between communities with current behaviours as they are.
Due to the pandemic I am still going for my daily walks in the countryside. I go along roads with less human and dog traffic. I find that if I go on routes with people out for their walks they walk side by side and make it impossible to pass them without entering their safe space. I can and do wear a mask but when you cross people once or twice in 20 minutes the mask is not justified, and you need the sunshine. I walk in the countryside. If I was in town the mask would either be on, or I’d be keeping three or four meters between myself and others.
I might be eccentric, but the pandemic is over one and a half years old, so I have had time for pandemic habits to become automatic.
I had to stop walking at two moments during this walk. Tractors had to turn around. To do so they had to drive over the road I was about to walk on. I prefer not to have a tractor with seeding equipment too close to me. It is interesting to watch them as they work different fields, with different tools, at different times of the year. Daily, I see what they’re up to.
Having the dissertation hanging over me is unpleasant. I often spend a few hours a day doing research which is divided between books and documentary films. Over time I organised all these ideas and I’m ready to start writing. I want to finish the first draft by Saturday. i.e. the day before april fool’s
On Saturday I went out to four parties. The first party was a nice mauritian buffet to celebrate a friend turning 25 and joining the generation old club. I was there for two or three hours before moving on.
The second party was a small affair although the participants were not university students therefore I left for the next venue.
It was the SU bar, busy on a Saturday night, something which is not that normal. It’s usually deserted but due to a person having their birthday there it was better.
The fourth party was the best part. Everyone from the bar got into 7-10 taxies and headed down to a house party. The house is in the middle of the suburbs, has two living rooms although one of these is half kitchen/half living room. Maybe it’d be called a dining room.
Many friends were there and there was a live dj to add to the ambiance. At the beginning there was no sound because they were lacking a cable or two to plug the speakers in. The issue was quickly resolved and sound began.
The party would involve the taking of 100 pictures, chatting to many people about many things. One of these people was glad to practice her french. Others shared drinks and such.
Saturday started around 7pm and ended 12hrs later with me walking a road I had walked many many times in the past. It was a really good night and I hope to have more like it.
Several times I have had to clean the exterior of Airbus 320 and similiarly sized aircraft. You get some really long brushes and firehoses and you spray the plane before you clean it. it’s hard physical work and it’s done between midnight and five am. It’s not a pleasant job.
Now that you know the type of cleaning I’ve done I want to express my deep dislike of cleaners and why. Every single day they pass in the halls and bang around, speaking at the top of their voices when students are in need of sleep. We’re also in need of a feeling of privacy in the form of silence. Every time some idiot walks by talking loud it’s annoying.
Then you’ve got the blocked doors and rooms. They’ve been polishing every floor over the past week so that when everyone who’s had the luxury of going home over the holiday comes home to a clean building. I have to put up with the chemical smells and the blocked paths. Imagine going to a door and waiting for three or four people to finish their work. Others polish the floor and you have to go another way.
Today I’m angry because of the cleaners. They decided to polish the floor whilst I’m doing my laundry. The clothes have finished being washed and they’re currently waiting to go into the dryer but that can’t happen until the floor dries, in two hours.
Why can’t they carry a warning, why can’t they do it at the time when the laundry room is closed. It annoys me that everything has too be done during the day when it’s most inconvenient rather than at night when out of service. I hate the 9 to 5 mentality whereby convenience is destroyed for the everyday user.
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