Reviews

Seven Minute Workout for 36 days

For about six weeks I have been trying to do at least one seven-minute workout every single day. I eventually fell out of the habit for a few days because I had to fight a little virus. I’m feeling better again. Time to see if I can beat my old maximum of 36 days.

At least one circuit a day

The Seven-minute app I was playing with is by Perigee. The app provides you with the opportunity to train for fitness, for strength or to lose weight. I tried to last for seven days on the Fitness program and suffered. I managed to stick with the routine for a week once as a challenge. Now I choose the routine that I feel I am most in the mood for. On some days I choose a stretching routine and on others I choose to push myself. I tried a chest workout and I found it hard. Yesterday I went for an animal routine and it was easy.

Suunto Spartan Wrist HR

My latest Suunto device is the Suunto Spartan Wrist Hr. This is a practical device that finally includes two features that I really wanted to see in a suunto device. The first of these is the Wrist heart rate monitor function and the second is a step counter that tracks physical effort on a daily basis and that can be reviewed later. [embed]https://www.instagram.com/p/BbouNhhnbAO/?hl=en&taken-by=richardazia[/embed]

Used for a multitude of sports.

I have used this device to track hikes, runs, indoor climbing, outdoor climbing, walks within cities and 7 minute workouts. Two of the devices strengths is that I no longer need to wear the heart rate monitor belt. This saves a few seconds and when you’re hiking or doing other activities with groups this is a nice feature. The second nice feature is that it detects GPS signals and provides a position within seconds. This means that you don’t need to wait or two like you needed to with the Suunto Ambit 3 and others.

Your own Waze driving directions

You can now record your own Waze driving directions. Instead of using pre-determined voices you can record a number of pre-determined phrases and use them for when you are driving. Recording and using your recording is easy.

Setting it up

In the settings menu go to voice directions, click on record new voice, name the voice and then you can record Start of Drive messages, Distances, Instructions, Reports and Other. Each instruction can be up to 6 seconds in duration. Simply click the red record button, record the phrase and then listen to it. Once you have recorded the first clip you can save the new voice.

Clean water is important to have when you’re cycling, hiking or climbing in summer but the issue is that it is heavy. When I go cycling I go with just one flask and I fill up the water bottle when I get to fountains that are marked as safe to drink from. When I go hiking or climbing I usually do not go with more than one and a half litres of water although I have gone with up to three litres for a hot summer day’s activities when the temperature is above 32°c. In Switzerland, France and Italy you theoretically do not need to walk with that much water because you cross streams, fountains, rivers and lakes. If you had a water filtration system you could theoretically purify the water from these sources and continue hiking. Yesterday I came across Katadyn and two solutions for water filtration.

Wehike is a website dedicated to find people with whom to hike. People can contribute hikes to wehike and then they or other people can organise events based on the hike information. This includes a GPX file and images. At the moment this site is in beta so they are looking for user feedback. At the moment they are based in Switzerland but they will be able to expand globally as people contribute hikes and other people participate in these hikes. I liked yesterday’s hike because for once I was struggling to keep up with the group rather than the opposite. Usually I’m leading the group and stopping every so often to take pictures and because I’m not certain of which fork to take next. In this case they were waiting for me. This is in part due to the Via Ferrata de Saillon trip the day before. I’ll get back to being in front of the group and taking pictures soon. This hike was interesting because winter is not over. Apparently twenty five centimetres of snow fell the day before. As a result one local recommended that we choose another route than the one we had planned on. We decided instead to see how the conditions were. As is the case when you go for hikes in Spring the damage from winter has not being cleared away. We found trees and branches on the paths and paths that would normally be clear to find required more instinct and orientation than average. When you start heading up properly you walk straight up through a pasture and you get to a stone ruin. We stopped at the ruin for a snack/lunch. From this point you walk up steep paths near the field’s age with a river to your right until you get to a clearing. From the clearing you walk up some more and you get towards the vista below. This is a view looking North at a steep climb up. If you continue to the Cap au Moine then you still have some climbing to do. Due to the deep snow and conditions this is the point at which we started heading back down. We walked along in 20-30 centimetre snow falling someone’s snowshoe traces and then headed down. When the snow is deep and powdery like it was yesterday it’s really fun. You can run and jump down the hill. I would share the photos if I had the participants’ permission. Here’s a taste. If you look at my GPS trace you will see how fast we were descending the slope. Eventually you get back to the grass and the tree line. When you get back down to the river you cross a stone bridge and to the right you see a waterfall pictured below. I enjoyed this Wehike because we had the opportunity to navigate and find the route, we got to climb over trees and walk under branches. We also got to walk a steep hill in the snow and run and bound down a snowy slope without worrying. Snow is so much softer for the knees. I would like to redo the hike later in the season when the snow has gone.

I have logged 799 activities with my Suunto devices. This includes hikes, via ferrata, climbing, swimming and scuba diving. I like Suunto devices because their battery life is good enough to last through entire days of hiking and the battery lasts for weeks between charges when used as a simple watch. I like to track my heart rate but I often feel self conscious about putting the heart rate monitor belt on. With the latest Spartan watch I no longer need to worry about the belt. At the same time as I start the activity I will be able to keep track of the heart rate. This is especially good for group activities when you do not want to keep people waiting and in winter when you’re wearing layers of clothing. I like that devices like the Fitbit Charge 2 can be worn at almost all times and track heart rate effortlessly when at the climbing gym and during other activities. I look forward to the same simplicity with a Suunto device. I especially like that Suunto devices survive swims and showers. I like that the Suunto Ambit 3 tracks how many steps I take during the day. It’s a shame that the step count is not logged and visible on Movescount. I like to see how energetic or lazy I have been on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis. It’s not unusual for me to go from a 21,000 step day to a 6000 step day. It depends on weather, work and other factors. If you go for a bike ride your step count will not be high. I will wait to see whether they apply this technology to the Suunto Ambit watch collection. If they come out with the Suunto Ambit 4 Wrist HR then I will be tempted to upgrade. With 799 tracked activities I believe Suunto devices have demonstrated that they are reliable.

I love sports and I love the outdoors. I really like snowboarding when the conditions are good and when there are few people. I love to climb, to hike and to do via ferrata. Last year during a film festival I was invited to try Paragliding for free and the flight lasted 45 minutes. In light of this you can see why the Gopro Hero 5+ karma above is so fun for me to watch. It’s not that I want a gopro camera. I’ve had at least two of their devices and except for filming two or three dives and two or three via ferrata the cameras have stayed in drawers or boxes. GoPro show adventures and experiencers that I aspire to. For this reason we want to watch these edits. We enjoy these edits. Modern film making does away with cranes, jibs and tripods replacing them with drones and devices like the Karma Grip. If you look at the adverts you see that video production has shifted from being a profession to a pass time. At the time of writing the Grip costs about 350 CHF and the drone has not been priced. GoPro is competing directly with DJI and their product line. With systems like GoPro and DJI are providing the term prosumer evolves. Thrill seekers and adventurers get to play with technology that they can afford to buy and use during their trips or weekend adventures. With this technology fixed cameras are a thing of the past. The camera moves with the action. In practice the camera operator doesn’t need to be an athlete to get in position to get the shot. Assistants are no longer required to carry heavy gear. You carry everything in a bag on your back and it’s ready to use within a short amount of time.

Winter is coming and snow has fallen on the local peaks and then melted again. The temptation to go snowboarding in real life is back. While waiting to go and do sports in the real world Ubisoft give us the opportunity to simulate the experiences of snowboarding, skiing, base jumping and paragldiding. I know three of these sports. I ski, I snowboard and I recently tasted my first paragliding flight.As I watched the trailer above and Jack Septiceye’s video of the game it reminded me of so many of the extreme sports videos I have watched. It also reminded me of the FIFAD event as well as the Montagne En Scène events. It pays a nice tribute to the culture of snowboarding and extreme sports that many of us have grown up with. It also harkens back to the days when I would edit the events that are mentioned in the trailer to this game. This would be a good game to have in the chalet while waiting for the snow to fall or the conditions to improve. I understand why the game filled me with passion. I liked seeing places that we know. It’s because the game developers are in Annecy so they’re playing in the same landscape as us. They’re snowboarders and skiers so they understand the sensations and they’re trying to emulate them in the game. When watching the paragliding sequences I like that we hear the flight computer’s beep as you ascend at different rates. It’s one aspect that you really notice the first time you try paragliding. That’s a nice touch for the game. From the videos I have watched so far it looks as though they have managed to capture all of these sensations in the game. This looks like a really enjoyable game to play. The game should provide people with a nice amount of escapism. As they get used to the controls and as the community for this game grows so the ties that bind this community will grow. It looks excellent.

Black Mirror - a television series Black Mirror is a television series that was broadcast by Channel 4 a few years ago and made available to Netflix audiences recently. The series explores a variety of topics and issues to do with technology from death to crime and existentialism. It also explores themes like family and friendship. We spend a lot of time thinking about technology and how it has changed our lives. Sometimes it’s fun to watch 80s series to see the world as it was before computers and the internet and sometimes it is fun to watch dystopian essays or short stories exploring facets of modern life. In modern society we see that social media is affecting the discourse that is taking place between politicians and normal people. We see how social media and the lowering of the barriers of entry to the fourth estate have created a golden age for propaganda and disinformation. We see in The Waldo Moment that a CGI bear can mock the political system. It could be directly related to what we have seen happen recently. Be Right Back deals with online identity and how a person can be emulated once they have died. The question is an interesting one. The more active we are on social media the more our character and personality can be understood and reflected back. This is limited. We are not entirely ourselves online. There are some things that we hide from the online world. In Fifteen Million Merits we see a dystopian vision of the world where everyone lives in a small dark room. They get out of this room to go and peddle for a few hours to get Merits. Once they have 15 million merits they can “apply” for a different kind of job via a talent show. Nosedive explores popularity and social networks. Everyone is constantly being rated based on what they share, how they interact with others and more. In such a dystopia people can progress or lose privileges based on reputation. In such a reality people are vulnerable. A vertovian theme is explored in “The Entire history of You”. An implant called the Grain records your entire life and you have the ability to fast forward and rewind moments of your life. In so doing you can analyse what went well, what went badly and more. You can also see more than you were intended to see through other peoples’ recorded experiences. In this episode we see the Kino-Eye, the all seeing eye. Your life is no longer private. I like some of the themes that are explored in this series and I recommend people to watch at least some of the episodes. I feel that they are relevant to our discussion about social media and online lives.

The leaves are going from Green to brown and are starting to fall. At the same time nights are getting longer and temperatures are decreasing. As a result of this the fun sports season is slowing down and getting ready for hibernation. In effect the prospect of outdoor sports is decreasing. This presents a perfect opportunity to play games like Prison Architect. Prison architect is a good way to unwind after a week of work. You can familiarise yourself with gameplay either by watching youtube videos or by playing the game in campaign mode. In Campaign mode you are in charge of a number of prisons with issues. As you resolve those issues you are trusted with a new set of issues before resolving these. It is an easy way to familiarise yourself with gameplay before moving on to creating a prison from scratch. When you start a prison from scratch you have limited funds. You can get around this issue by applying for grants and completing tasks. Completing tasks gives you more funds. These funds allow you to progress quickly. As your prison expands and as you take responsibility for more prisoners you can also research various aspects of prison management. This goes from prison labour to rehabilitation and more. You control the prisoner’s regime. You can choose the regime for low security, medium security and high security prisoners. You also assign patrols. These include normal guard patrols, dog patrols and armed guard patrols. Dog patrols can be used to detect weapons, tunnels and drugs. Armed patrols can be authorised to shoot without warning shots. Prison labour can be used for making licence plates, carpentry, cleaning the prison or working in the kitchen. The bigger you make these rooms the more prisoners you can allocate to specific tasks. With carpentry, kitchen work and workshops prisoners must first be trained. The more time you allocate to work the more groups you can have working at once. If you have two or more workshops you can get two to three sets of prisoners  to be trained at once. Education and detoxes are also possible when you build common rooms, a medical ward and offices for psychologists. Prisoner ratings go up as a result of this. With the right regime prisoners can be rehabilitated and paroled. Parole is a desirable feature because every early release gives you 3000 dollars. It’s a nice and easy way of earning extra cash. There is a prison scorecard which you can consult. On this card you can see health, security and other ratings. Reoffending rates are also visible. When playing this game I managed to get single digit re-offending rates. The prison gains value as you expand. Avoid escapes and deaths as these prevent you from selling your prison for a period of 24 hours in game. When you decide to sell a prison you keep the money earned through its sale and can use it to start a new prison. With this capital you can build bigger and better sells and you can expand the prison faster. You can also buy more land and choose the security levels for various sections of the prison. As you play this game you have the opportunity to experiment with regimes, parole conditions and more. The more you play the happier your prisoners will be. As the prison expands you have to make sure to keep your prisoners happy to avoid riots, prisoner escapes and more. You can just as easily play this game for long stretches as short ones.