Walking

Over the last three or four days I have marked two books as finished despite not finishing for a simple reason. I have plenty of books on Kindle, Audible and Kobo that I need to read, but that to read all these books, would take time. I started to read one book and I stopped within pages, every time for the same reason.

In today’s context my disgust with one book is rational. For decades the web and social media have been treated as addictions, and because they have been stigmatised and seen as illnesses it becomes morally acceptable to abuse users. Look at Meta Facebook and Meta Instagram, and how they are being discussed in the news. The attitude, that social media is a drug enabled marketers, and social media owners to abuse of their addicted users, because they’re addicts, and it is their fault for becoming addicted.

At this time of year there is a race between the walker and the sun. Either you must go for a walk earlier in the day or you must be ready to walk after the sun has set. Both of these are possible. The days are getting shorter and the temperatures are getting lower. They are getting low enough for gloves to be tempting. I haven’t worn them yesterday, or today, but yesterday I almost felt the need.

For many people walking without masks during a pandemic is normal. This is confusing. We have known for months, or even seasons that the virus is airborne and that masks are a simple way to keep safe. Despite this people walk by the seaside without masks. It’s not just that they walk without wearing masks, but that they do not seem to be visible.

I can’t imagine walking without a mask. Even when I’m walking across fields with little chance of crossing paths with people my mask is at hand, ready to be worn. I actually go out of my way not to walk within two meters of people, especially people without masks. I always have a mask with me, and recently I started to favour an FFP2 mask, over ffp1 masks, because I feel safer. I am still likely to wear masks whenever I am within four meters of people.

Today is a rainy day so I have less of interest to write about. The rain fell this morning. It continued until this afternoon. Rain is an excuse not to go for a daily walk. It is an opportunity for a rest day.

Yesterday my 770 plus day streak on Duolingo was broken because I was too distracted to take a lesson. I wanted to break that streak. I didn’t want to break it intentionally. I wanted it to be by accident. I accomplished that goal. Now I am free to reset and work on creating a new routine that is better suited to the new goals. The focus will be web development, whether JSON-LD, JS, WordPress, or more.

We can’t all head to the mountains and the slopes that lack snow. Some of us head south to the coast. The weather is good and the air is warm enough. It is warm enough for me, not just to consider swimming but to actually do it.

A rocky outcrop

The sea is blue and green as usual with waves breaking. I saw a few orange buoys but I am unsure about whether they are for diving boats or swimmers. Usually for divers they are not so visible.

If you are looking for a sport easy walk with a little scrambling, walk to the rock arches. Two holes have been eroded into the rock providing two natural arches.

You can walk up to both arches but it’s better to go on a quiet day. This place is not a good place for big groups. Children could enjoy the opportunity to see geography in action. Children should be supervised on this walk, especially along two sections of the path, and at the arch itself.

For most people over 20 degrees air temperature and twenty one degree water is okay. I struggle. I like water to be warm. I like to be warm before I go in. I like to know that when I get out I will still be warm.

Today with a little effort I managed to convince myself to swim. I didn’t swim much. I swam three hundred meters. Usually I would swim further. During the pandemic I did not swim or climb so my arms are not as strong as they were.

One treat of being in Spain is that some people do wear masks when walking outdoors. You are normal for wearing a mask.

In Switzerland you are looked at as if you are eccentric or absurd. It is nice not to be looked at as a curiousity. It is nice to have the security of a mask without feeling like a freak.

A paradox of mask wearing in Spain is that it’s hot. In theory this would make it less appealing to wear a mask but it has no effect. People still want to be safe.

A conventional tech blogger would usually just write about JSON-LD and completely ignore the fact that they went on a walk. I like to combine the two. JSON-LD, short for JSON Linked Document is an agreement for certain data fields to be used for specific purposes. The idea is to standardise terms within a database to make the sharing of data easier.

When you work with databases and data it is important to define what the schema will be. A schema is like a template but with data fields. It is an agreement, or requirement to have specific data about a product, asset or other.

Today I looked at two of the masks I used over summer and they are both bleached by the sun. So is my hat. I normally expect things in Spain to be sun bleached, not Switzerland. The reason is simple. First, it never ever rains, and even clouds are rare today, and second, I spend an hour and a half outdoors a day walking. Plenty of time for my things to get sun bleached.