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These four brands create watches. Casio creates rugged watches with batteries that last for a decade or more, and pair with mobile phones to track walks and more. Suunto and Garmin have fitness/sports trackers that measure activities, whether sailing, climbing, running, walking, cycling, scuba diving or more. Apple in contrast creates fragile, mediocre watches that cost as much as mid to high range watches and yet their battery lasts for one day, if you’re lucky. I even heard that Apple watches with 4g last half a day between charges. Charging a watch twice a day is unacceptable.

Yesterday I tried running and walking in high winds. I have cycled and walked in high winds but I had not yet had the sensation of running in high wind and it is quite interesting. In cycling you feel that the wind pushes your bike to the side, and you counteract the wind.

With running in high wind I found that if I ran with the wind then my body behaved as a sail and I could feel the wind pushing me faster than usual. Of course the legs and cardiovascular system need to keep up. It’s when you turn perpendicular to the wind that it becomes interesting. As the feet lift the ground the wind pushes them laterally so that the right foot bangs into the left leg. I had to avoid tripping.

https://youtu.be/UwJuKemh4VE

A stormy Leman

Yesterday afternoon I was looking at the GPS track for a run I did with the 45s and I was struck by how wide of the mark it was, compared to the same run with the Garmin Instinct. With the Garmin instinct the GPS track fits like a rail to the satellite and road map. With the Garmin Forerunner 45s it is quite a way out.

How Big Is The Difference?

With the Garmin Instinct GPS track you can see so precisely that you can tell which side of the road I was running on, as well as when I switched from one side to the other. The GPS track is highly aligned with the walk or run.

I have written at least one hundred and one blog posts in one hundred and one days. During this time most blogs have gone by unread. Blogging could be seen as futile but it isn’t. Having the discipline to write every single day, despite having no inspiration is good. It forces us to stop, think, and develop inexistent ideas.

In different times I would not write one hundred and one blog posts about nothing but we’re in a pandemic that is being ignored by the people with the power to get us out of it. This means fewer conferences, fewer meetings with people to do sports activities and more. It means less freedom to find covid safe work. It means living with the constant risk of getting long COVID. Switzerland is living in denial about the pandemic and this is frustrating.

I am confused by Apple reading goals because they measure how many days you have reached your goal, as well as how much you read for the current day, but once today is yesterday it loses all of that information. It tells you that you have a. streak but you have no way of knowing anything else.

It would be nice to know how many hours you read per week, as well as how this has varied from one week to the next, from one month to the next, and from one season to the next. With this information you could see whether seasons and other factors affect how much you read. None of this matters, except that because it is tracked it is a shame not to keep that information available for users.

Sometimes when you go for a walk you spend time watching birds. In the video below you see a flock of gulls flocking around a tractor as it prepares the field for a crop. You see hundred of gulls wait for the tractor to open up the ground and then they rush in to find some snacks. I think they’re happy with worms, insects and small rodents. Anyone that thinks that vegetarianism doesn’t result in hundreds of animal deaths is wrong. These birds love to explore behind tractors.

For several months I was not bothered by the noise of an environmentally unfriendly farmer. This farmer loves to use a really old tractor. He loves to turn on the engine and let it run for minutes at a time, without moving. It is running now, as he fills the container with water and pesticide, or whatever he is concocting. A rational human being would cut the engine when a tractor is not moving, to save on fuel, and cost, and to protect the environment.

In 2006-2007 I would have payed for Twitter and/or facebook, but not now. Both of them say “pay, to prove that you’re a human being”. For as long as I have been on Facebook I have used my real name. I authenticated myself by using my university e-mail address. Back then you need an educational e-mail address to be verified. it’s only with time that the barriers to entry collapsed.

I am currently working towards a goal and I am struggling. I am struggling to stay focused when I follow online courses because I find that my mind strays. I am also struggling because the topic is so broad that there are hundreds of things you can learn but you need to be focused.

I am also struggling because although many people live in denial about the pandemic it is still thriving. The positivity check, for a disease, to be considered under control is less than five percent. COVID, after five years is still at ten or more percent. This gets in the way of going to conferences, meetups and other networking opportunities.