Swimming Pools Per Capita Map

Swimming Pools Per Capita Map

Byrichard

Today I learned that Switzerland has a map that shows which communes have the most swimming pools per capita. Nyon has 50 swimming pools. That’s 2,3 per thousand people. Blonay St Legier has 336. Collonge- Bellerive has 491, as you’d expect. 


Switzerland has, on average, one swimming pool per 155 people. They cover an area of around 2,500,000 square meters. 


The Water Impact


Switzerland has 56,000 private pools that contain 3.5 billion litres of water according to their estimate. That’s an enormous amount of water. This doesn’t include the indoor private pools. As droughts become more common the concept of having a private pool becomes more and more absurd. It becomes absurd because private pools require a huge amount of water, and are seldom used. 


It would be interesting to see a chart of “litres of water used per swim” where evaporation, splashing and other factors are taken into account. Swimming pools lose a lot of water, especially on hot water. 


Remember that we have been in an age of stopping the water when we’re brushing our teeth and washing our hands. We’re in an age of showers rather than baths. Within this context it makes sense to look at pools and consider their water impact on the environment. 


Having said this there is one saving aspect. The water that runs off from pools shouldn’t be dirty or dangerous for the environment. It’s that so much of it is lost and wasted in evaporation. That’s when the requirement to cover pools when they’re not in use would make sense. It would save a lot in water. 


Saving Petrol


In theory, with more private pools, and if they are shared with friends, either in the neighbourhood or elsewhere, then pools could be more efficient. If pools are set up with a cover for when they are not in use then they heat up faster, thanks to the sun, but evaporation is also greatly reduced, thus making the pool more ecological. 


They also spoke in the video report about setting up outdoor pools every summer, for some people, and that these outdoor pools were filled in summer, and emptied for winter. At least with permanent pools they are filled once, and then topped up. 


I didn’t hear any discussion about collecting rain water to keep pools filled with water and I didn’t mention a comparison with green lawns and more. Does a pool use more water than a watered garden? 


Trees Instead of Pools


Although not discussed in the report they should have explored the benefit of having trees, rather than pools. If we’re walking on a warm day we notice the thermocline as soon as we get near woods. We notice that the temperature goes from being like an oven, to cool and refreshing. Not only do trees keep air cool and provide shade, but they are able to gather their own water from deep underground. You get to feel cool, while dressed. 


Lakes, Rivers and Public Pools


Nyon has the Piscine du Rocher, Piscine de Cossy and Colovray, three public pools that people can use, three all year round, in theory, and two for winter. The lakes, during heat waves are warm enough for swimming, as are some rivers and more. In theory there is no need for them to have so many swimming pools. 


And Finally


Some communes, like Cheserex, built communal swimming pools, that people could use year round. In winter you can sit outdoors and get cooked by the sun, before going for a swim. In winter you can go for a swim, and then go home, without using the car, if you live in neighbouring villages. 


The report often spoke of the desire for private pools stemming from lockdowns. I would see it as being due to heatwaves that are constant for two or three months a year now. During a heatwave the desire to cool down is strong. 


Communal pools, and trees would help people cool down, without the environmental impact of private swimming pools. 

Dismantling A Crane

Dismantling A Crane

Byrichard

Have you seen someone walking along the gantry of a crane to detach the counterweight for a crane? I did. Today. He was clipped in, as you would assume but I am unclear as to whether he went clack clack like we do on via ferrata.



Would you want to do this. I don’t think I would mind, if I was secured properly. I also wouldn’t mind if I had the time to get used to being high again.


In Spain I have the funny sensation that I am drinking pool water every time I drink water from the tap. It rained at least twice during my time in Spain and the pool has gone from 21c to 18c so today I jumped in with my semi dry suit. With a semi dry suit you can jump in to cold water and although you feel a cool trickle of water you don’t get cold. I used it often for cold water diving.


If you’re looking for a November challenge then could I suggest this course? 100 day web developer course 2022. An eighty hour challenge for the motivated. It’s currently 9chf instead of 89chf. It’s worth buying.



Entering Twenty One Degree Water

Entering Twenty One Degree Water

Byrichard

For most people over 20 degrees air temperature and twenty one degree water is okay. I struggle. I like water to be warm. I like to be warm before I go in. I like to know that when I get out I will still be warm.


Today with a little effort I managed to convince myself to swim. I didn’t swim much. I swam three hundred meters. Usually I would swim further. During the pandemic I did not swim or climb so my arms are not as strong as they were.


We have weakened during this pandemic and another wave is coming. We are about to have the fifth Swiss wave and other countries will be going through the same thing. People do not understand how pandemics work. They were never curious enough to find out.


We will see when and if I try an electric bike. At the moment I have two or three routes to experiment with. Anything that can be done alone is pandemic friendly.


The pandemic has changed what feels like a reward. I am happy just to walk, on a daily basis. I don’t feel the need to do more. What would have been rewarding pandemic does not exist today.


People say they want the pandemic to end but they do nothing to precipitate the end. They just play the victims, without considering that they are active participants. People are not assuming the responsibility they have.

Sea of Tranquility – Snorkeling VR by Pierre Friquet
| | |

Sea of Tranquility – Snorkeling VR by Pierre Friquet

Byrichard

During the World XR Forum this year in Crans Montana I helped Pierre Friquet with his Sea of Tranquility VR Experience. This VR experience was unique in that it required you to be either in your swimming clothes, your underwear or other.



This was a VR experience where you went from being outside where the temperature was descending to winter temperatures to what felt like a warm room when dressed but comfortable when wet.


The experience is simple. You change from your conference clothes into your swimsuit and step into the pool. You stood on a ledge with a depth of just 75 centimetres and received a short briefing. “Are you familiar with snorkelling?”, “Are you familiar with VR?”. They then stepped towards the rope and a tethered floatation belt was brought to them. They placed the belts around their hips and when ready the VR headset was placed on their head, the snorkel was placed, and then a headlight. “When you’re ready to let me know and I will start the video”.



As the video started to play those experiencing The Sea of Tranquility VR experience leaned forward and assumed a horizontal position and floated towards the deep part of the pool. From here they could look down. They went from being in a room if they looked down and started their trip towards the moon.


The audio they could hear was mission audio from Appollo 11. They could turn their head if they quickly wanted to look around but they could also turn by thrusting with their arms either left or right. Instead of a swivel chair or a wheelchair, their support was water.


I personally tried the experience once when tethered and then again when free. During this experience I wanted to swim down and so did others. Two others and I tried the experience untethered as well. The desire to dive down was strong so two of them did.


In one case I saw that a person was uncomfortable with snorkelling so I brought her back to the shallow part of the pool and she enjoyed it. Usually, this VR experience is in 1m20 of water and here people were in 2 meters of water. That’s why I brought the person who looked uncomfortable to the shallow end of the pool.



The torch that people wore on their head added to the experience. As they watched the video and moved in the water so their head turned, and as their head turn you could see that they were looking around. When two people were in the water at once it was quite entertaining.


When some people finished the experience they were so absorbed by the video and the VR experience that they needed to re-acclimatise to reality. In one case it took several minutes.


In several cases, people tried the VR experience and then went for a swim. In one case I did several laps with another person and that was one highlight of the event. It’s the third time I go as a volunteer to this event and I think that between sleeping in a bomb shelter, helping people experience VR in water and by having regular meals this is the best World XR event I have experienced to date.


As a bonus, some of us got to try two other VR experiences. One of them was floating through the ISS but the one I really liked was the scuba diving demo video. In this VR video, you are descending a slope and as you look right and left you to see fish, sharks, a wreck and more. At one point you get to the end of the slope and get to a wall. You float over the wall and then you’re in the water with three whales. As a diver, this sensation was familiar, as was looking around like this.


I really like snorkelling VR experiences and I would love to experience one with scuba equipment. Imagine being underwater, rather than floating on the surface. Imagine being able to dive down and experience the depth, as well as weightlessness.


Slalom Swimming

Slalom Swimming

Byrichard

Slalom Swimming isn’t talked about enough. Slalom swimming is the type of swimming you do when you’re one of the stronger swimmers but not the strongest. You’re going fast enough to overtake certain swimmers but too slow to keep up with others. As you overtake some swimmers you’re forced to swim to the side to overtake them.



Linear swimmer


As well as having the slow swimmers to content with as you overtake them you also have the linear swimmers. These swimmers swim in a straight line without ever moving to accommodate other swimmers. You are the one forced to move out of their way over and over again. When you’re swimming one or two kilometres this means that you’re swimming more than the length of the pool on each lap. These are the people that impact my enjoyment of a swim.


A lane to myself


A week ago I had a lane to myself for an entire hour. During this hour I swam back and forth along the centre line for the entire duration and it felt good. It is for this reason that I swam such a distance. The length of the pool was just twenty five metres so i had to do quite a few back and forths.


For the last two lengths of the swim, I practised breath-holding. I swam my penultimate length under water successfully and then took 30 seconds or so to get my breath back and swam the final length underwater as well. When you perfect the technique of swimming under water it feels like you’re gliding. You make one stroke, let yourself glide, and then you do another stroke. you repeat this until you’re at the other side of the pool.


Cold water


Many years ago when i was taking swimming lessons as a child I would always get cold and start to shiver. Eventually the swimming teacher would let me get out of the water and go to the showers. As children we would stay under the showers until we had used up all the hot water and then we’d get out and be really thirsty and enjoy an ice tea. It tasted so good.


My reason for not swimming is often that I like to be warm and swimming pools are, or at least, were cold. I like to swim when I know that I will be warm when I get out of the water. Thanks to the most recent heatwave my psychology changed and I want to swim again.


Having a broken arm and limited access to swimming, cycling and other sports also helped. Swimming with an arm healing with a break is simple to do. You don’t need to worry about lifting weights, about pulling, pushing, torsion or other forces. You can also modulate the strength of your strokes according to what feels comfortable.


Price


One of the strongest motivating factors to go swimming is that it’s a third as expensive as gym membership and more affordable than climbing gym memberships for a year. A year’s membership would be amortised after just 45 swims. If you go swimming five times a week you’ve amortised it in five weeks. The other advantage of membership is that you can go for just half an hour or an hour. You work out and get out and get on with the rest of the day. You also get a full-body workout.


No need for an internal combustion engine.


The final advantage is that you don’t need a car to get there. As it’s within walking distance you can easily walk there without worrying about petrol, traffic or parking. When climbing, you always have to worry about those aspects.

On Breaking an arm and replacing climbing with swimming and cycling with walking
|

On Breaking an arm and replacing climbing with swimming and cycling with walking

Byrichard

A few weeks ago I broke my arm while cycling. I was indicating that I was turning right while breaking with my left hand and the brake blocked and the next thing I knew the bike was on top of me.

I extricated myself from beneath the bike and dragged it to the side of the road and reached into my bag to get a bottle of coke to help with the shock. I drank it and tried to recover before walking home. This accident happened just meters from my home.

A driver helped and asked if I wanted a ride to hospital and I said “no” because I was so close to home. Within a few minutes I stood up and limped to put the bike in the garage and walk up to my apartment. I sat there for twenty or more minutes; thought about resting and seeing if the pain would decrease.

I could feel that my left arm was limited in motion and my right wrist was in pain. It felt as if the injury was serious enough for a walk to the hospital three kilometres away. When I felt relatively certain that I wouldn’t faint along the way i started to walk. A friend who lives in the same apartment was driving a post van and asked if I needed a ride and I answered yes. Rather than being delivered to hospital by ambulance I was delivered in a postal van. First joke opportunity.

I checked in to the hospital and was checked. I told them that my left arm hurt and that my right wrist hurt. I was asked if I had a helmet. I said “yes”. The medical person took my blood pressure, heart rate, checked my stomach for injuries and then told me to go to reception, take care of the bureaucracy and wait for the doctor to see me. The wait was a long one.

When I finally did see the doctor she checked the mobility in my arm and thought I had probably not broken anything in my left arm but wanted it x-rayed anyway, along with my right hand. The X-ray was painful.

When the doctor saw me after looking at the X-ray she said that I did have a small linear fracture in my humerus and that it had to be immobilised. My hand was not even mentioned.

For the next two days I struggled with everything from opening the doors and windows to getting dressed and showering. For a short period of time I thought I would need to ask for help with daily tasks.

I was sad about this injury because it meant that cycling and climbing were no longer possible for at least two weeks. I had just changed my yearly cycling goal to 3000km.

For over a month I could not drive or put any weight on my left arm. I couldn’t cook much. I couldn’t drive and I struggled to shower.

Due to this injury I had to walk everywhere. I walked to the shops and just to get out of the house. I was walking 15-20kms a day, during a heatwave. I enjoyed walking. As I walked everywhere I took plenty of pictures and completed my via alpine route one goal. I walked over a hundred kilometres a week.

Aside from walking I also needed to rest and recover. I would turn on the television and watch the Tour de France on France 3 and France 2 every single stage. This was my best way of resting and recovering.

When I could use my arm again and started physio I started to spend more and more time with the arm brace. This was a good time to get it to dry out. With the summer heat it got soaked.

Eventually I did feel well enough to travel and left for Spain where I swam every morning in the sea and every afternoon in a pool. The sea was between 26-27 degrees and the pool was at a pleasant 30c.

I swam half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the afternoon. Swimming was a good sport because it’s a soft sport. You can easily modulate the effort according to whether you feel pain or not. It also requires no lifting or extra strain as the bone recovers.

I love swimming but the main issue with this sport is that water is cold and that air is also cold. I love to be warm so I enjoy swimming most when I know that I will stop shivering sooner rather than later.

I almost always swam with a mask but often with a mask and snorkel. In so doing I could see how few fish were around in the sea but also to reduce the strain put on my arms. With a mask and snorkel you don’t need to pop your head above the surface for every breath. You can also make a gentler effort and avoid straining the bones that are mending.

I tracked these swims with both the Suunto spartan wrist hr Baro and the Apple Watch series four. Neither had any issues. I used the Suunto in the sea and the Apple Watch in the pool. The problem with Suunto is that they do not accommodate pools shorter than 25 metres so the stats it gave were wrong.

|

Swimming competitions and your viewing future

Byrichard

The media is in a time of convergence and that’s what some people find fascinating. i’m listening to a number of podcasts about technology, the media and computing in order to keep informed on developments.

Today I will be working once again with footage that has been shot in another country. What makes this particularly interesting is that the footage is coming from Hungary whilst I will be in Switzerland. I will see the races take place, then I will cut the video, add some text and upload it to a website. This is similar to what you’d expect to find on a variety of websites.

Once the event has been finished for a week or two I may take one or two of the edits and upload them as part of my showreel.