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A coquille St Jaqcues using a glass of coke and the sun.
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The Shoe Subscription – On Running
Yesterday I switched from the trail gloves I have been wearing since May for some new ones. The old shoes are still wearable, for indoor activities or for road trips but they have reached their limit.
Just a Worn Sole
The only thing wrong with these shoes is that the sole, where my heel pushes the ground has worn through. It no longer provides support for my heel, especially for long walks. As a result I feel the pressing need to swap shoes. The top is still fine and the back of the shoe is still fine. It’s only the sole that has worn through. The material on top is fine. The laces are fine. If I wasn’t walking eight to ten kilometres a day I would keep them in service because they’re fine. They lasted for around five or six months through ninety activities, whether walking, hiking, or running. I am happy with them.
I am so happy with them that if I could get a subscription to trail gloves I would. I walked 668 kilometres without problems.
CloudNeo
On Running is a Swiss company that makes shoes, clothing, and accessories, for a number of sports, such as running, hiking and more. They have a subscription offer that replaces shoes every six months or so. The subscription costs 35 Swiss Francs per Month and you get new shoes when the old ones are worn out. The shoes are made to be environmentally friendly, and recycled, in house, rather than externally. In so doing they promote the Cloud Neo as shoes that you never own, you just wear them out, send them back, get a new pair.
A quick search and I find that shoes are meant to be thrown in the bin, if single, or recycled, if as a pair, rather than recycled and I hate this idea. All shoes, when ground up, can be recycled and turned into new shoes or other products. The shoes themselves are increasingly made from recycled materials, so it makes sense to reuse the material again.
How it Works
With Cloud Neo you begin your subscription, get a pair of shoes, make sure they’re the right size, and if they are not send them back, and if they are you wear them for ninety days. After ninety days you check them for signs of wear and tear, and when they need to be replaced, you send in your old shoes and a new pair will be sent to you. The old shoes are cleaned, ground up, and turned into new shoes. To simplify the process the shoes are not dyed.
Price
You have less than a month to try the shoes, and decide whether to send them back or not. You then have six months where you’re locked into the contract. After that you can terminate the contract within a month, as is the case with most monthly contracts. I calculated that it would cost 210 CHF minimum and 420 CHF per year. The question is whether you would require enough shoes for the subscription to amortise itself.
If this option existed for Merrel trail gloves I would take it without hesitation. In this case I hesitate because I don’t know the brand, I don’t know the shoes and I don’t know the feel. I saw that I can get a pair of shoes from this brand for 129 CHF from Galaxus, to test the feel, before committing to six months or more.
And Finally
If Decathlon or Merrel offered a shoe subscription I would sign up. I need shoes every few months because of all my walking, and knowing that the shoes are recycled and reused would be pleasant. If I already used On shoes, then it could make sense as I would save money. At the moment this deal would cost me more than I spend at the moment. The shoes I have now should last until next summer, as long as they are not too cold in winter.
Visiting the Creux de Van and spending time with Bouquetins.
Images I saw of the Creux de Van made me want to visit the location in person. Yesterday despite the mediocre weather I went there. From Neuchatel you drive towards Noiraigue. Free parking is available.
For the first hour you are walking up a steep winding path. A few trees have fallen, stones and mud are also present until you reach the top of the cliff. From there you see a glimpse of the cliff and views to come. As I stood there I saw a solitary Bouquetin on the rocks.
From there I went right and walked along the cliff. On one side I had green grass and a farm and on the other side I had a steep cliff. I walked along and came to an outcrop. From here you could see the full cliff face. I walked around the arc until I came across a herd of Bouquetins. They were right in my path. I took several pictures before heading back down the other side. I came across a wooden hut and table where people can have a snack. As you walk through the woods you get towards the end of the Gorge De L’Areuse. It was full of water due to the recent rains. By this point I had already walked 10km so I continued back towards the car.
Learning About Service Workers
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.”
A Forgotten Apple Event
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.
The Landscape
The view is not as good as sometimes. A few clouds but with the haze hiding the Alps today.