A pigeon over Paris with a GPS watch

Replaceable Batteries and Wearable Tech

Byrichard
Reading Time: 3 minutes

With a user like me it takes a year or two for a mobile phone to become depleted. After this period of time I am stuck with the weight of an external battery that I have to plug in half way through the day to recharge the device. This is, in part, due to how many apps are installed and running, on my phone, but also due to how I use my phone for audio books, and news reading. Back in the day I would have said social media, but social media is dead.

Wearable Tech Can’t Charge While Worn

With wearable tech the situation is different. With wearable tech when the battery degrades you’re stuck. With a Casio watch, or plenty of other brands, you simply go to a jeweler or watch shop and get them to swap the battery and you’re good for another 2-10 years. With an Apple watch, when the battery is at 67 percent health you’re stuck with a dilemma.

To Upgrade?

Do I spend 90 CHF to get the battery replaced despite knowing that my device is five years old and near the software update end of life or do I buy a new device and if I get a new device do I get it with, or without 4g?

With a mobile phone, if the battery degrades you can plug it in, as you walk around and use it. With wearable tech you have to take it off to charge it. If you’re in the middle of a walk and the battery dies you’re stuck. Either you carry the charger and leave some of the activity untracked, or you wait until you get to your destination and charge it then.

The Old Urge to Get the Latest

A few years ago whenever a new iphone, or a new mac book air or mac book pro would come out I would fight the urge to upgrade on a yearly basis, and when I did people were always happy to get my old iPhones. Since the 4S that urge vanished because new products were iterative, rather than revolutionary. Even the Ultra is iterative, offering nothing that proper fitness watches or dive computers did not offer. My only reason for thinking about upgrading the Apple watch is a dying battery.

An Adapted Charging Habit

The other option is to charge the watch before you sleep, to track sleep, and to charge it as you work, eat, or do something static, so that the battery is at one hundred percent for when you’re doing something sporty. When you know that a battery has degraded after five years of daily use you adapt to the new battery capacity. In my case I’m working with 67 percent of normal capacity.

The Paradox

The paradox is that I love to hate the Apple Watch. I hate that it tracks standing, and counts a day as failed if you don’t stand enough, despite beating the activity goal. I dislike that if I track something with one device or two it will get confused and count my activity as zero, when it was up to the goal, at the very least.

Health Screen

What I do like, and criticise is the Apple Health screen. I like that I can see my walking instability, my step length, the number of floors I run up and more. I like that I can see how my average running speed is changing over time and that my vo2max is going up. Plenty of watches track this.

Since the 20th of September the Health app added MET measurements to measure physical activity.

The main difference between MET and PAI is that MET is a measure of the intensity of an activity, while PAI is a measure of the overall physical activity level. MET is useful for comparing the intensity of different activities, while PAI is more useful for tracking your overall progress over time.

Bard Explanation of MET and PAI Differences

And Finally

I have spent months thinking about whether to upgrade to a newer Apple watch and I have tried various lower cost option and I like each, but I really like how complete the health data set is with the Apple watch. They also added the cycling computer option when using an iphone and an Apple Watch. It’s still buggy as shell but it has potential.

I am not upgrading because I want the latest tech. I am upgrading because to replace the battery would cost 90 CHF for a device that will be obsolete within a few months. According to research I did an apple watch is considered end of life after four years and this watch is at five years and counting, so over a year beyond the usual life expectancy.

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David Pogue’s Style

Byrichard

Too many video podcasts are badly produced and that is why David Pogue’s most recent episode was enjoyable to watch. He has a distinctive style. Whilst most video podcasters are content simply using a fixed camera at a desk he takes the time to create entertaining demonstrations of how the tech he is discussing is interesting.


In one episode he talked about how phones for children were great for some things but let down by others. He demonstrated his frustration at having an iPhone yet not being able to talk about it because he was under embargo. In one episode he was testing noise-canceling headphones and wore all of them at once as he left through the front door of his house. Each of these little acts helped to make his podcast both entertaining and different from others.


In his most recent episode, he brought attention to this fact, claiming that he would do it the same way as other video podcasters. He did do some things in a similar manner but overall he demonstrated creativity. By using cutaway shots and gags he still avoided a static shot of someone talking and even makes his audience laugh. The way he did this was by demonstrating a mallet and a sensor and how you can smash your computer’s screen virtually.


It’s great to watch these podcasts because they are well shot and thought out.


There are a number of podcasts that I find are lacking in quality. They re shot in high definition but the person is in a studio. In other cases, they perform interviews but use no cut away shots to illustrate the person’s character and profession and as a result, the interview is very hard to watch.


We’ve got great technology at our fingerprints. Almost any computer can now be used for editing and almost every household has at least one video taking device. Everyone has watched hours of television yet people have not learned how to produce videos to the standard that is required to make it entertaining. There is one advantage to today’s media landscape.


Those who are good video producers and content creators will attract a wider audience and as a result, may be able to sustain what they are doing  and expand on their initial idea. Quite a few people have made their mark and are now living comfortably thanks to the ideas they have brought to fruition and shared.

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I Haven’t Had a Proper Night’s Sleep in 85 Days

Byrichard

Since I left Switzerland after doing some work on the 21st of February I haven’t had a proper night’s sleep for 85 days. That’s a long time.

I wish there was a soundproof chamber into which I could go.

What if I designed and built a soundproof bed? Wouldn’t be that complicated.

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Pay-to-win Futility.

Byrichard

Several years ago a friend told me about Clash of Clans and I began to play the game. The game is an enjoyable distraction for when you have a minute or two three. You perform a few actions and then you get on with your other tasks. When you play for free patience is an asset. You have to wait to get enough gold, elixir or gems before you can complete certain actions. The game is designed in such a way that you can play for years and still progress.

I like to joke that the Pay  to Win model is both encouraging and training people to bribe their way through life. If you’re impatient you pay a little supplement and you complete the action. Instead of taking a week for an action to be completed it takes seconds. Supercell has made millions this way as individuals spend more than a thousand euros. Those who are willing to pay get to the top of the leaderboard.

Two factors that discourage Paying To Win.

The first reason is that I come from the early days of computer games when you paid for a game once and you could play for as long as you had free time. It was a time when Civilization 3, Gunship 2000, Doom and other games were around. With games like Clash of Clans, you spend more than you would spend on a good meal and you only progress a little.

The second is that accounts are or at least, were, platform specific. I started playing Clash of Clans when I had an iPhone. When I switched to Android I lost my progress and had to start again. It has taken more than a year to get back to the same level. If you pay on ios your progress is not reflected on Android and vice versa. It’s nice to have two level50+ games but imagine if I had paid to get the game on both platforms to be at the same level.

Clash Royale

Recently they came up with Clash Royale. This is another Pay to Win game and as you can see from the screengrab above it is currently the top grossing app on the play store, at least in Switzerland.

They released the game to a restricted number of countries at first. Some players were at an advantage. They could play and progress in the game. We were easier to beat as we arrived later.  Now we find it easier to beat the newcomers, as we have learned strategies to be victorious more often.

People who are less patient, less humble have obviously paid a lot of money to progress. I prefer to wait and progress for free.

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Networking around Pokemon Go

Byrichard

Networking around Pokemon Go is less interesting now that everyone plays the game. I have heard non geeks talk about Pokemon Go. They spoke about the large crowds that are staring at their phones in places like Ouchy. The value of social movements is to be part of a small, passionate group of players where the community is large enough to be fun but not so large as to become mundane.

With a game like Ingress players were more sparsely distributed. When we met other players there was an immediate connection because we were few and far between. You would walk around certain cities and villages and you would not spot other players for hours of game play. When you met another player you wanted to meet, you wanted to interact.

Communities are fun when they are small. Pokemon Go has risen in popularity at such a rate that old social networks may be privilieged over new ones.

I was at the Chateau de Prangins a few days ago playing ingress for a short period of time raising the level of Ingress portals. During this time I saw at least 5-10 adolescent boys playing Pokemon Go, walking and running around the park.

Pokemon Go is like alcohol or snowboarding. As everyone plays the game the opportunity to create new social groups is reduced. Why mix with new people when your core group of friends is already playing?

The Facebook, telegram, slack and Google Hangout groups are alive and well this summer so people are connecting with new people. Although a new network of people is forming around this game I feel that it is hindered by the popularity of the game. Introverts can connect online via these groups, Meeting new people face to face may not be as comfortable due to the large crowds.

It’s great that a location based game is encouraging people to run around while staring at their phones. Phone screen replacement companies are very happy with the increase in demand for their skills and external battery sales are going up. Prices are going to go down and innovation is going to go up. If you’re an introvert, bad at small talk, then Pokemon Go has reached its peak usefulness and you can revert to other less popular activities. You can skip the craze.

 

Prompt Engineering and chatGPT

Prompt Engineering and chatGPT

Byrichard

If you follow chatGPT and AI courses you will often come across the term “Prompt Engineering”. Prompt Engineering is the art and science of writing instructions so that AI understands what you would like to do. With time and practice you can be as specific as you like. You can fine tune your request until you get precisely what you are looking for. 


The Limit of chatGPT. 


“As an AI language model, my responses are generated based on a mixture of licensed data, data created by human trainers, and publicly available data. These sources may contain publicly available information up until my knowledge cutoff in September 2021. It’s important to note that I do not have direct knowledge of specific data gathering practices or the individual sources used to train me.”

chatGPT


The limit of chatGPT is that it goes up to September 2021. This means that code solutions for specific apps, like a css style sheet for calckey.social won’t work. You need to ask questions about CSS and adapt the resulting code to work with Calckey or other newer code. 


Writing Tic Tac Toe and Hangman


Last night I asked chatGPT to write Tic Tac Toe, Hangman and a ToDo app in C++, php and java. The results were variably successful but this shows the power of chatGPT. In theory you could browse to github or other website and just cut and paste the code. The result is similar, but with one key difference. 


With chatGPT you can ask “create a simple nav bar that changes colour on mouse over using UL and LI tags and it will generate that code for you. 


“please create a simple nav menu using html ul and li elements and style it with css so that text is highlighted on mouseover”.


html and css code for a nav bar
html and css code for a nav bar


The point is that chatGPT can write entire apps, if you engineer the right prompt, but it can also generate snippets of code for you with a specific result in mind, as in the example above. 


Show something in a table


When you ask chatGPT for a table of things to do in barefoot shoes
When you ask chatGPT for a table of things to do in barefoot shoes


Show something in an HTML table


When you ask chatGPT for a table of things to do in barefoot shoes in html
When you ask chatGPT for a table of things to do in barefoot shoes in html


As you see chatGPT understands the instruction, provides me with a result which I can then tweak to match my desired outcome. Instead of spending ten to fifteen minutes writing and formatting the table with this data, I can get chatGPT to do it for me. 


In What is Generative AI Pinar Seyhan Demirdag said of AI that “AI does the work and humans focuses on the vision, the idea and the purpose.” In other words AI is an assistant. The more you study prompt engineeering, and the better you get at getting the desired outcome, the more useful and valuable AI, and your skills in using AI become. 


And Finally, For Now


AI behaves like a person. The more clearly and concisely your instructions are, the more the output will reflect your desired outcome. AI is constantly learning from Big Data. Our task is to learn how to give instuctions, prompt engineering, as it’s called within the industry, so that AI provides the results we require, saving both time, and to some degree, learning. I have just scraped the surface. I want to learn more. 

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