Tomorrow I Have a Long Drive
Tomorrow, once again I will go for a long drive. We will see how well I cope with it. In theory I will be comfortable, as I was on the outward journey.
When you’re driving from Nyon to the airport without traffic the journey takes about twenty minutes. If you decide to drive into the city of Geneva that journey time is doubled thanks in main part to traffic lights. It once took me over one hour when scuba diving in Hermance to drive from Place des Nations to the other side of the Mont Blanc Bridge. That’s over one hour for less than two kilometres. That idea cooled down my motivation to dive in Hermance. At the time I was driving a petrol rather than a diesel car.
Yesterday I was driving from the foot of the Jura to Cornavin and the drive from the foot of the Jura to Geneva was fast. It’s when you drive from the motorway to the centre that you lose time. 23 minutes to drive 3.8km. I don’t have a start/stop car so when I’m spending 23 minutes at traffic lights the engine is running and polluting the air for nothing. There is no gain from blocking traffic lights.
It was even worse when I was on Rue Montbrillant. The GPS indicated 15 minutes to travel about 750 metres. Can you imagine the carbon footprint of traffic lights? That’s 15 minutes of nitrous oxide that had no need to be sent into the air. Imagine the health impact of keeping vehicles trapped at traffic lights. Within 30 seconds I went right and parked at Place des Nations and walked the last 750 metres. I wasn’t going to waste 15 minutes because “environmentalists” decided that the best way to discourage people from driving was for them to sit in traffic and pollute the air.
When I was working on Rue Montbrillant I was taking the train to and from Geneva every day and I used an abonnement de route to reduce cost. It works well until you’re reliant on bus schedules. Some routes have one bus an hour. This means that a 30-40 minute drive becomes a one and a half hour public transport route. If you finish your day at 1800 you’d arrive home by around 1930-2000. This means that although you’re taking the environmentally friendly option you’re spending two and a half hours a day to commute. During warmer months and drier days, the scooter was a good alternative. Within minutes you’re on the train to Geneva.
That’s the paradox of environmentalism. You want people to be environmentally conscious and you want them to minimise car use but rather than provide them with time efficient solutions to encourage them to take public transport you trap them at traffic lights.
Waze, Tomtom and other GPS manufacturers should take the heat maps we generate with our mobile devices every time we drive and design public transport infrastructures to replace the need for cars. This data is already available. Below are two heat maps of cycling around London and Switzerland. If you used the same type of data from cars you could design a system that replaces the need for cars.
When you live in a city you see two kilometres as a big distance to drive but when you’re in the countryside 2km is nothing. London on a bike feels tiny after walking and taking public transport. In Geneva it’s not that you have much traffic. It’s that the traffic lights give the illusion of traffic. Most of the side streets are empty of traffic most of the time.
This week I wanted to cycle in to Geneva for my lunch time meetings but chose not to because the bike ride is energetic enough without the weight of a 15inch laptop on your back. I did buy a bluetooth keyboard for the mobile phone as a mac book air replacement. That should make cycling more pleasant. I also have spare tires in case I get a puncture.
Geneva’s traffic light policy did work on me. Several years ago I became so tired of waiting at traffic lights when driving into and out of Geneva that I stopped going. Instead of meeting people in Geneva I drove to various lakes to scuba dive and to the mountains to climb, hike, cycle and do other more environmentally friendly activities. This is especially true when we drive other participants. When I climb Fort L’écluse I meet people at CERN and when I meet people to go to Swiss VF I meet them at the Nyon train station, Fourmi metro stations or even the Lavaux motorway stop.
Rain was forecast today. If rain had not been forecast then I would have driven to Ins, near the Lake of Murten near Neuchatel to go around the lake at a slow up. I didn’t go, not because rain was forecast, but because rain was expected although not quantified. I like to drive and do things, sometimes, but if I drive so far, especially to do something in relative solitude I would prefer to do it when the weather is good, rather than rainy. By driving so far in the rain I am contributing to global warming for very little
That’s why I’m going to write about my current experiment. I saw, a few days ago, that the Raspberry Pi 5 4GB model was being sold at a reduced price so I decided to get one and experiment. Yesterday I installed Ubuntu on one SD card, but I also swapped the SD card from the 8gb pie to the four GB pi. So far I find that the 4gb pi copes well with Facebook, watching facebook reels, YouTube videos of 18 minutes or more and other simple browser based tasks.
It is easy for us to fall into the trap of looking at expensive laptops and thinking “I want the latest mac book pro” or “I want the latest framework laptop” and so on.
The truth is that for web browsing a Pi is good enough, especially the Pi 5.
As I was browsing, looking for more inspiration for this post I got the Pi to crash, simply scrolling down a Facebook page. In my experience Pi crash when they become too hot. It’s not that they have stopped working, but rather that they overheat and slow down, to the point to appear as if they have crashed. If you get a fan and blow air on them they usually revive.
That’s why it’s worth getting a fan to go with the Pi, to help with cooling.
I use the Raspberry Pi default case with the Raspberry Pi integrated heatsink and fan and it works reliably. I was using the Pi 5 default case with the default fan when it overheated and slowed to the point of appearing as if it had crashed.
One Pi5 works as a server that is always on. The second works as a laptop replacement, and the third is for experimentation, so that I stop breaking my main laptop replacement. I was recently experimenting with other desktop environments and was unable to recover. The third Pi was bought because it was cheaper than usual, so that I could experiment and learn more skills. It takes very little time to reconfigure a Pi as I want it but if I use it with Immich then that does take time to recover.
If the weather was good I would be hiking and writing about the experience but since it’s rainy and overcast I am experimenting with a Pi5 4gb, crashing it, and then reverting to the Pi5 8GB to conclude the post. The official fan/heat sink costs 14.40 so it’s not that expensive but once it’s on the board it is hard to remove.
Next Sunday I should be doing something more interesting.
Yesterday I switched from Ubuntu on the Pi5 to Raspberry Pi’s version of Debian. I experimented this because I had just moved the data from one file system to another so it seemed like the right time to switch from one OS to another.
The first step was to move my data from an Exfat volume to an Ext4 volume. The next was to mount the drive and connect both Photoprism and Audiobookshelf to their new volumes. I also copied the audiobookshelf folder from the system drive for the old OS to the system on the new OS. I then adapted the docker-compose files with the correct information and started both Photoprism and Audiobookshelf.
Photoprism is now reindexing all photographs from the photos folder. Once that is done I will migrate the photos from the import folder. I am not doing that yet, because I don’t want it to confuse which files are already in the archive, and which ones are duplicates during the upcoming import. I expect this to take several days.
With Audiobookshelf I was able to copy over the books with ease but I need to add some new books that I bought since the last update. I did not migrate podcasts. Although I enjoy using Audiobookshelf to listen to podcasts I find that it is quite fiddly. You need to login as the admin to add podcast series, and configure how many podcasts to download and how often to check.
If there was an app for iOS for Audiobookshelf then I would really enjoy using the service. It’s easier to use the default apps. If I listen to podcasts on two to three apps I need to mark them as read in one or two other places and that’s work. For now I will keep audiobookshelf for books and the most recent podcasts from one or two podcasteers.
Although the server changed from one OS to another, the hard drive where files are stored changed the applications behave as if nothing had changed. This means that I do not need to login to services yet again. This also means that I can now start duplicating a server setup between machines once I understand how to synchronise changes.
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.
Time-lapse videos are fun because we can see something happen faster or slower than real time. By watching this content we gain a better understanding of the world and how it works. For years I have been filming time-lapses and the results can be fun. In some cases we record time-lapses with video cameras and at other times we set an interval timer to take pictures every so many seconds. In this post you will be watching clouds form as a 360 timelapse.
I have chosen to share both the flat image and the spherical image. The reason for sharing both versions is to give you an overview of how objects move in both.
With this version look to your right and you will be able to watch the clouds move through space. As they move you will see them grow thicker and then cover the sun. At this point everything gets darker. If you watch this video a few times you can watch the landscape change.
The next step would be to get a 360 camera somewhere high during a total eclipse of the sun by the moon. During such events you will see a grey mask cross over the landscape, you will see birds fly away and then everything will be dark. You can then turn around and watch totality, the corona and then the reverse process. The time is right for eclipse chasers to be at the right place to capture such an event as a 360 video.
With the flat version you can imagine where you would aim a standard camera. Would you try to get the clouds that are forming over the mast or would you prefer to look out towards La Dôle and watch as the large clouds form and float to block off the sun? In this image you can see from Villeneuve and Lausanne to Geneva and the Salève.
Having such a wide angle of view allows you to see everything that is going on in front of and behind the camera. The timelapse is a sequence of pictures rather than video so in future I hope to export the video in a higher resolution.
Whilst in Paris I was given a coffee due to a misunderstanding between the waitress, a friend and I and as a result this was the first coffee I ever finished. It’s almost a week later and I’ve just been to see the documentary Black Gold which discusses the plight of Ethiopian coffee farmers.
The documentary is shot in an observational style with the use of intertitles rather than voice over. As a result those that are telling the story are those that are most affected. We have one main character who works on bypassing several links in the chain from farmer to coffee shop whilst having the conventional chain being illustrated in parallel. The documentary touches on a number of interesting points but I will leave that to you to discover as you watch the documentary.
The documentary producer was present at this screening and took some time to explain the reason for which he chose this topic, how certain coffee companies tried to discredit the film as a result of which I think some time should be taken to get more information about the topic out there.
Fair trade is a hot topic so why not have a blogactionday which is focused on poverty alleviation and which informs us about what should be changed and what is already been done.