Northern Exposure and Blowing Bubbles
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Northern Exposure and Blowing Bubbles

Byrichard

Northern Exposure is a series about a doctor who finds himself sent to Alaska to be a doctor for a few years. He thinks that it is the middle of nowhere and he has to adapt from enjoying life as a New Yorker to life as a frontier town doctor.  


Early colza in the Canton of Vaud
Early colza in the Canton of Vaud


Although the series is thirty plus years old it still remains relevant today with its exploration of global warming, pollution and more. The characters have existential conversations and in a few episodes we meet the man living in a geodesic dome. He lives in the dome to avoid pollution. He is allergic to aluminium, methane gas and more. 


It’s an interesting episode to watch within the context of the pandemic. People, including me, continue to wear masks when we are indoors. People think that we are strange for doing this. The pandemic isn’t over. We hear all the time about how Long COVID lies dormant, whether people are symptomatic for weeks, months of years after primary infection. It makes sense to wear masks, given that a mask takes a second to wear and take off, but long COVID can be for life. 


Cars coming from Geneva on Easter Friday
Cars coming from Geneva on Easter Friday


The idea of being allergic to the modern world, to various forms of pollution is an interesting one. We read about forever minerals and plastics in drinking water, more and more often, and about air pollution. We have CO2 monitors to keep an eye on pollution. We have maps of pollution around cities, motorways and more. The topic is still relevant today. 


This television isn’t on Netflix or Amazon Prime. It is on Filmin, a film network for experimental films. The content is niche, more diverse and more interesting. as long as you understand Spanish. It has films like Nano of the North, which I find interesting. I know this because when I typed North for Northern Exposure it suggested Nanook of the North, a documentary film I read about regularly when I was studying documentary. 


Modern television series should have people wearing masks to socialise. “Lunatics” like me, who still wear masks, should be normalised in modern television series, to show that being cautious should not be worthy of stigmatisation and prejudice. Northern Explored pollutants in the air. Modern series should explore the reasons for still masking despite the gas lighting of politicians, stating that the pandemic is over, despite the death rate telling a different story. 

Thirty Kilometres Per Day

Thirty Kilometres Per Day

Byrichard

The Swiss travel an average of 30 kilometres per day in their cars, according to a new survey shared by the Radio Television Suisse.


I walk 14 to twenty kilometres per day, and if I go for a bike ride I travel 30 kilometres. I use the car twice a week, for food shopping and that’s mainly because of the 15 minute rule for refrigerated food, rather than laziness. During the pandemic I would do food shopping with the car but pick up the drinks by going for a walk. It’s a one hour trip to the shops and back for me. 


My single biggest frustration with walking as I do in Switzerland is the network of roads that lead from everywhere to everywhere, with no pedestrian paths for walkers or cyclists. Some villages and streets are designed for cars, with no pedestrian option. No pavement, no cycle path. No limit to 20 km/h. It’s assumed that people will use the car, rather than walk. This is astounding.


When I drive I show respect for walkers and cyclists. I slow down to pass them, on narrow roads, and on wide roads I go to the opposite side of the road to pass cyclists and walkers. To reduce the need for cars people need to be able to get from their homes to walks and cycling lanes, without risking dangerous drivers. For five years I have walked more than driven. For five years I have seen how cars behave with. pedestrians and cyclists. For five years the toxic behaviour has encouraged me to drive with humanity, but also to desire a switch away from cars. We should not automatically get into a car to do things. We should automatically get our walking shoes on, or get on our bikes. 


“Il y a un énorme travail à faire. C’est une question d’horaire, pour qu’on puisse se déplacer le soir et le week-end dans les heures creuses. C’est aussi une question de destinations: il faut que les transports publics soient facilités à destination des régions touristiques”


In brief, Vincent Kaufman says that public transport needs to be spread across the day, not just at peak times, but also that transport needs to be later in the evening, when people who want to go out socialising need to have transport. That’s what I have said for years, or even decades. We see how London makes it easy to get around even at night, whether with tubes until midnight or later, now, or night buses. 


In the video interview he also speaks about how the Swiss transport network is geared towards commuters rather than pleasure seekers. I find this both paradoxical and ironic, since so many adverts encourage people to take public transport. Having said that, transport is to the tourist traps, rather than areas of unique and outstanding beauty, which is why I suffered so much, without a car one summer, and without the ability to drive a second summer. That’s why I pivoted to local walks and bike rides. 


If there is an alternative to the car people will use it. If the alternative to cars is cheaper, then people will use it. I have happily explored every walk and bike route from Geneva, and even Yvoire to the West, and Lausanne to the East. I think that I know almost every road, via biking. For walking I think I know most paths within a two hour walking range of my current home. I used to go to the mountains every weekend, like described in the article, but with the pandemic, job insecurity, a broken arm and a summer without the car I have learned to walk and cycle. 


Two Frustrations


My two frustrations are, first, that dog walkers don’t keep their dogs on leashes, so at least six times I have been attacked by dogs. People love to say “If you’re not afraid of a dog then it won’t attack”, that’s great, but then I am being attacked, precisely because I am scared, which is why I am scared in the first place. A few days ago I thought that my fear of being bitten would be realised but I had the right response. Principally I froze. 


The second frustration is that cars do not respect cyclists and pedestrians. Every single day cars drive too fast by me. When I drive by people I either give them space, if there is space, or I overtake pedestrians at slightly more than walking pace. 


And finally


I went from using the car seven days a week, for almost anything, to using the car just twice a week, and only because I need it for shopping. I have gone from driving one or two hundred kilometres a weekend, and 50-60km a day, to zero. I am the change they want to see. 

Connected Watches and Psychological Profiles

Connected Watches and Psychological Profiles

Byrichard

Connected watches know everything about us. In theory they listen to us 24 hours a day for years in a row. My Apple watch has been on my wrist for over four years, every single day. It has been for swims, runs, rock climbing, via ferrata, office work and more. 


The watch knows how much I walk, when I get up, when I go to sleep, how well I wash my hands, how exposed I am to noise and much more. It also knows whether I am moving energetically or lazily. It knows if I am walking faster or slower. It also knows how rested or stressed I am, by looking at heart rate variability. 


Some people will look at the two paragraphs above and think “I don’t want this”. 


The Suunto, Garmin, Casio and other brands I have used measure walking, sleeping, and more but not in the way that Apple does. Apple theoretically knows a lot more for two key reasons. The first is that the Apple universe includes your laptop, your phone, your watch, your tablet and your keys and other possessions. Apple has access to almost every aspect of our lives. 


I bring this up, not because of a sense of paranoia, but simply because there is an article about this on the RTS website after some uni students wanted to know more. They asked people hundreds of questions to get a profile. They then tried to correlate that data with watch data to see if the watch could help establish mental health via a watch. They don’t say anything about brand. 


What makes this report especially interesting is that these are conclusions from fitness trackers, rather than high end smart watches. 


Some things are obvious. People who go out on a friday night are considered extroverted, people who sleep little and move more regularly are considered nervous and more. This is nothing that we wouldn’t expect to hear. 


If we look at the bigger picture, at big data, then this could be interesting. By tracking enough people over time it could be determined whether people are becoming happier, sadder, more nervous, less nervous, about to commit suicide and more. There are reports of how connected devices showed signs that someone was beginning to fall sick, with COVID, or other diseases. 


Steps, sleep and heart rate are just the tip of the iceberg. Most watches collect more than this so they know more. 

Playing With Migros SubitoGo

Playing With Migros SubitoGo

Byrichard

Yesterday I tried playing with Migros SubitoGo and the experience was good. You scan the QR code for the shop as you enter and then you scan the products that you want to buy. I kept them in my hands until I got to the checkout counters.


Passabene


With Passabene you shop, you scan your products, and then you go to the cash machine, scan the shopping list to the device, and it charges you. It’s quite conventional and sometimes it asks for a double check from a cashier.


Subito Go


With the Subito Go app you can scan what you’re buying, put it in your bag and then choose to pay, and you can pay for what you bought, from anywhere in the store, if you are so inclined, via Twint and more.


A Strange Feeling


It feels strange to pick things up, scan them, pick up more things, scan them, and then to pay directly from your phone, without using any shop device. In future I can walk into a shop, scan what I want to buy, put it in my bag, pay for it and walk out without stopping, at the checkout, without a cashier seeing me motion that I am paying.


A System of Trust


This works for one simple reason. Societal trust. If and when a society behaves morally then people can be trusted to walk into a shop, pick things up, and pay for them, before leaving. I read about this type of shopping in Switzerland but I had not played with it in Switzerland yet. Now that I have, I like it.


Phone Batteries


The SubitoGo app is within the Migros app. It uses the phone’s camera to scan products. It works well but it’s better to use it with a well charged battery. It used about 8 percent for 27 minutes on my phone.


The Moral Side


People do not like self-checkout and other such tech because they feel that it removes jobs from shops. I don’t think that it does, because shelves still need to be stacked. Instead of being stuck in one place shop workers are constantly walking around and filling shelves.


I often see that the people standing by self-checkout machines are having conversations with friends. They interrupt the conversation, if someone needs assistance, but the rest of the time they chat, like bar staff in bars, on a quiet day.


Some jobs are fun. I think that sitting at a cash register, on a quiet day, without customers is boring. On such days I am sure that they prefer self-checkout, where they are there in case of a problem.

A Walk at the Snow Line

A Walk at the Snow Line

Byrichard

The most striking thing about a winter with little to no snow is that there is no noise. Normally ski lifts clank, people talk and there is a lot of noise



When there has been very little snow the ski lifts are turned off and the mountains are quiet. This is when you realise the impact of winter sports.


In summer you hear cowbells.

Garmin’s Auto Goal

Garmin’s Auto Goal

Byrichard

Garmin allows you to select the number of steps you want to take in a single day, or let it be set automatically. For a year or two I allowed the goal to set. The result is a step goal that fluctuated from 12,000 steps per day to 15,000 steps or more. This was fine, because I ignored it.


A few days ago I decided to set it to a fixed ten thousand steps a day. Many will say that the 10,000 steps per day doesn’t matter, and I agree. I took 21,000 steps today so I overshot the mark by a little.


I run every two days or so, and I walk for an hour and a half or more each day. Although I do this sometimes I undershoot the goal by a few hundred steps and the streak is lost. The streak, too, doesn’t matter, because it is meaningless. What I find interesting is the number of steps taken in a year. Once it was five and a half million. Now it is currently about 4.3 million.


These numbers too, don’t matter. If you run, or if you cycle you’re either making more effort, or your steps are not counted. In both cases the step count tells one story but other metrics tell another.


Last night I read about how you can increase your Vo2 max up to a certain point, and after that it doesn’t increase. What does change is your resistance to fatigue. You go from being able to run for 2 kilometres to being able to run for 2.3 kilometres, and more.


Today I walked for two hours in drizzle. I passed by two Camino stamp opportunities and collected them in a booklet that is not designed for this use. I collected them as a curiousity, and to give this walk a different purpose.