An old American car

The Solitaire Puzzle

Byrichard
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Recently I rediscovered my love of the game solitaire. It is the game we played on windows 3.1 and other windows operating systems, up to iOS and more. Solitaire is a simple game to play on a mobile phone, ipad or computer, whether laptop or desktop. 

I have found that a game of solitaire can last from two to four minutes between deal and win. It’s the type of game that takes a lot of focus when you’re learning to play it as a child. As an adult though I find that within milliseconds I make the decisions and move on to the next one. 

The paradox of solitaire is that it’s an old and simple game. Is the card red or black. Is there somewhere I can place the card. If not then I just deal, and deal, until I can. The more you play the quicker you recognise whether an opportunity exists or not. That’s why it becomes a relaxing thing to do, whilst watching television, or listening to something. 

The paradox of Soliaire is that such an old and simple game, is, in many ways more compelling than the games that require you to watch adverts every 30 seconds or so, depending on how quickly you fail, or succeed at a task. It’s the type of game you can play, fully focused, or as a distraction, and succeed. 

I have played plenty of modern mobile phone games and it’s the one that I gravitate towards now, because it’s the one that costs the least, and forces me to see the least adverts. It’s also the one that doesn’t require me to wait for three hours for A to b ready, before being able to do c, before completing task D. 

I think Solitaire is a great little game to play during our free time. 

Similar Posts

Garmin Instinct Solar Run, With A Mask, And A Walk.

Garmin Instinct Solar Run, With A Mask, And A Walk.

Byrichard

I tracked the run and walk with the Garmin Instinct Solar. It is very easy to use while wearing gloves. You can stop the activity, change sport, start the activity, do the second sport, and then stop the tracking of the second sport, without taking off your gloves. Now that we’re in the cold part of Autumn this is useful. On the flipside anytime the clouds hide the sun this watch is unable to recharge itself. Despite this the battery life is still good. When fully charged it displays 27 days, but it loses around two or three days of charge per day with a tracked activity. This is still excellent. The Apple watch needs to be charged every single day. It is a watch that you can wear in the classic style of wearing a watch, i.e. keep it on for days or weeks at a time.


Today I tried running two kilometres and a walk home. In the process I found that wearing an FFP2 mask did not hinder my breathing in the least. I only ran for two kilometres because I want to keep from pushing my knees too far. I don’t like finishing a run, barely able to walk. I have made that mistake, and I will avoid making it, if I can.


Running with the mask didn’t hinder my breathing at all. I could breath in, and I could breath out, and I never felt that it was getting in the way. This is due to two reasons. The first is that we’re over 20 months into this pandemic and we’re used to how masks feel and behave. The second reason is simply that it is cold. Wearing a mask provides a bubble of heated air, to prevent us from breathing cold air, or feeling cold air on our faces. I was also worried that if I took off the mask my face would feel cold. This means that I wore the mask for at least an hour. Nothing by some standards, but not bad, in the middle of the countryside with few or no people around.

| | | | | | |

Village Photography

Byrichard

On Google Plus, one of my muses, I saw that instead of Street photography someone suggested Village photography. I like the idea because villages are such an integral part of my life.

Life in villages is a privileged one. Every time we go for a walk we cross people we do not know and say hello. We walk from field to field and along paths. We see which crops have been planted and which ones are being harvested. We see frequent horses and dog walkers. We also see families. We hear the sound of rifle practices at the local gun range. The practice is for military service most of the time.

We also have fountains and old buildings. We hear the church bell every half hour and hour. We see the fountains with wooden chalet to protect from the cold in winter.

Villages are seasonal. In summer the sounds of children playing, of fireworks and of barbecues can be heard. In Autumn the sound of wind blowers can be heard. In Winter we see lights on as the neighbours prepare their evening meal.

In the mornings we see parents bring their children to school before the bell rings and they head in to their classes to sit and wait impatiently for the school day to be over so that they may go out on adventures.

That’s why village photography captivates my imagination. I know villages well. I appreciate them. I look forward to looking at images from the past, and preserving today for future generations.

Replacing a WD Thunderbolt Duo Drive with an ICY BOX

Replacing a WD Thunderbolt Duo Drive with an ICY BOX

Byrichard

While consolidating all of my files and deleting triplicates of files I came across my thunderbolt Duo Drive. The issue is that the drive uses thunderbolt two ports and these are nowhere to be found. To be more specific it’s seen as a DVI display port by everyone but Apple for a brief period of time. The result is that I was stuck with data on a drive that I couldn’t retrieve. The solution was to transport the Duo to an old mac book pro with the right ports, transfer the data, and then think about what to do with the two drives within.

Thunderbolt Adaptor Expensive and Not Guaranteed to Work

For a while I considered buying a Thunderbolt 3 to USB-C adaptor but I didn’t know whether it would work for data transfer and it costs 49 CHF depending on when you look. That’s without counting the thunderblot cable to go with it. I calculated that I would have to spend 80 CHF to have access to the drives within this case.

Cheap RAID System

As I shopped around for hard drive enclosures I came across the ICY BOX IB-RD3621U3 for 69 CHF so I ordered that instead. The advantage I gain by buying this case is that I can use any drive I want to with it. With the Western Digitial Thunderbolt Duo they want WD Red drives to be used. With the Mybook NAS solution they want WD Green drives. With the ICYBOX solution I can have any drives I want.

Quick Setting at the Back

The added feature, which I have not tested yet is that you can have the case in single mode, where each drive is indepdent, big, where both drives count as a single volume, raid 1 where the data is mirrored or RAID 0 where the data is split between both drives. The advantage of raid 0 is that it writes data faster as it writes to both drives at once but it’s scary because if one drive fails all data is lost. I don’t remember if raid 0 or a single disk is considered scary RAID.

Not Hot Swappable

To the best of my knowledge the drives are not hot swappable, especially in RAID 0 and Big drive mode. It also requires a smaller screw driver that I have on a bike tool, rather than the Swiss knife. It took a few seconds for me to get into the drive but once I did everything went well.

Why Not A NAS?

In theory it could have been interesting to get a NAS rather than a simple HD enclosure but there is a 100 CHF difference in price. If I do want to use it as a NAS I can place one of my Raspberry Pi in front, install NextCloud or Samba and setup my own NAS within a few minutes. The other consideration is that NAS drives cost a lot more because they have to cope with being on for thousands of hours at a time.

One of my ideas is to use this box with PhotoPrism and Nextcloud in RAID 1 configuration. The reason for this is that if one drive fails I can swap the one that failed and then it will rebuild from the one that survived. The other reason is that having two or three drives plugged into a PI takes USB ports, power and space. If I have a single box it will be tidier.

Looking Forward

At the moment I have two terabyte drives acting as a four terabyte drive in Raid 0. Once I have backed up the data from this drive confidently I can either have them as a mirrored raid so that if one drive fails I do not lose all my data or eventually I can upgrade the hard drives to increase storage capacity.

And Finally

There are two advantages to getting such an ICYBOX. The first is that now if I have a DUO drive with ports that are no longer common I can simply swap them from one enclosure to another and use the drive with ease. I am no longer concerned with hardware ports. The second advantage is that it’s easy for me to swap drive pairs so I can upgrade when required but I can also quickly access data from another drive pair with ease.

In conclusion, although the automatic reflex is to an adaptor to get data off of a duo drive it makes more sense to open the Duo drive, remove the drives, put them in a new enclosure, backup the data and put the old case in storage. Within a year or two you can buy two new higher capacity drives and use them instead.

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.

Learning to Prepare an Americano In A Sigg Miracle

Learning to Prepare an Americano In A Sigg Miracle

Byrichard

I love drinking espresso and preparing them but there is one big drawback. You drink them within a single sip and the pleasure of drinking coffee is over to soon. That’s where a quick google search provides the answer. An Americano is either two nespresso capsules of coffee poured into a mug of boiling water, or 15 grams of coffee per 150ml of water in a Moka coffee maker.


Today I tried Option one. I boiled water in a kettle, eyeballed the appropriate amount of coffee and then put the Sigg miracle berry mug under the nespresso machine. It spilled onto the lip of the cup and onto the counter so I quickly held the mug in the right position. I lost a little espresso but it’s a mistake you make once, for a story to tell. The second shot went in without problems. I closed the lid, went for a short drive, and then took a sip. Oups, this tastes awful. I added a little sugar and then it was perfect. A coffee to go, prepared within a very short amount of time.


Perfect for a road trip or the commute to work, when we can drink in vehicles, at the end of this pandemic.


Plenty of people write about why they love the Camelbak tumblers because they keep the drinks warm for hours, but I am going to take the opposite tact. What I like about the Sigg Miracle Berry is that it keeps a hot drink for a theoretical hour, before cooling down. That is plenty of time to prepare the coffee, walk to a train station, and then sip it as you wait, without queuing at a café or coffee shop.


Conversely the form factor should make it possible to get hot chocolate and coffee from automatic machines. You can refill almost anywhere and because of its lid you can transport it, without fear of spilling. You can almost gesticulate whilst talking with it in hand, without worrying too much. If you gesticulate, make sure you haven’t just taken a sip, as some residual coffee may fly away.


I have both the 0.47ml and 0.27ml versions because whereas the small version is good for Café Lungo, and coffee, the larger one is good for hot chocolate and tea, although after hot chocolate I would dismantle the cap and remove any traces of residual milk. The same lid is used for both sizes, so you can swap them around if you need to, or replace a lid if needed.


I am choosing not to write about the pandemic at the moment. If we lived in a free society where liberal values, rather than populism, were prevalent, then I would write about the pandemic. It is important to document this moment in history, but when it is appropriate to do so.


Rain and Water Tables
|

Rain and Water Tables

Byrichard

There is an article on Swiss Radio and Television that discusses the positive impact that the flooding has had on the water tables. For several years not only have we had warm weather but we have also gone with very little or no rain for months at a time.


During some weeks we were told “The water reserves are so low that we will soon need to switch to retrieving water from the lake rather than our reservoires. Underground water is great for when there’s a drought above ground, but the problem is that underground water is finite, and as a result if it is not replenished then it will eventually run out.


The fact that we have had so much rain over the last few days is excellent for the water tables, as I have tweeted or written here. As that water gets down to the water table, it will remain, until the next time it is needed.


Après plusieurs années de canicule, les eaux souterraines avaient, en certains points, fortement baissé, notamment dans le canton de Vaud.

Source: Les fortes précipitations ont un impact positif sur les nappes phréatiques

It’s easy to see the human tragedy of mass flooding, and people losing everything. We must also understand that nature has a way of balancing things out. That’s why this planet, and these latitudes, are inhabitable. It is normal, after a period of drought, for a lot of rain to fall, to replenish water tables, and then for another period of drought to come back.

This amount of rain has not fallen in seventy years. What makes this year unique is that it is spread across the whole of Switzerland.

Chaque ville a déjà connu des débuts d’été particulièrement arrosés. À Sion, ce fut l’année 2007. À Genève en 1997, à Lucerne en 1993. La particularité de cette année 2021, c’est l’étendue du phénomène. Toutes les stations montrent un pic des moyennes quotidiennes de précipitations.

Un niveau de précipitations inédit depuis 70 ans en ce début d’été

And for your intellectual curiosity, if you understand French. The phenomenon of the “Cold Drop”.

Les faibles températures et les violentes précipitations qui s’abattent sur la Suisse sont dues à un phénomène météorologique appelé “goutte froide”. Il désigne une poche d’air froid qui est abandonnée par la calotte du pôle Nord.

Cette masse est ensuite “étranglée” et “attaquée” de part et d’autre par un air plus chaud. Elle se met alors à tourner sur elle-même jusqu’à former une dépression, donnant lieu à des orages et de fortes pluies.

That’s it for today.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.