Years ago I was interviewed by the RTS to speak about Twitter and my conclusion is that it would never pick up in Switzerland because there are too few users and they’re too dispersed. That is still true.

Social networks that are alive and well are Meetup, GoSocial, Strava and Whatsapp. It’s absurd that Whatsapp is in the list given that it is owned and controlled by Facebook, so people that hate Facebook would, rationally avoid Whatsapp too, but they don’t.

Yesterday I woke up feeling tired and both Garmin and Apple said that I neded to rest. What I thought were allergies turned out to be a one day cold, I hope. According to the Apple Watch my HRV crashed down and in the evening I definitely had a cold/flu dream.

My dream, paradoxically, was sorting through a list of photos via checksum or some other technology. What I spent my waking hours doing made it into my dreams.

Yesterday I went for a run and I struggled. The distance was four point five kilometres so it was short. I suspect that it’s running straight after lunch that made me find the run hard.

Last night I felt fine. I felt like cycling today, and I hesitated between the group ride and going for an Ingress First Saturday event in Geneva. Now I find that neither motivated me this morning. I woke feeling tired.

Today I decided to download and play with Meta AI but I didn’t use my Facebook or Instagram accounts. I used a brand new account with no connection to me. I don’t trust Facebook and the Meta “pattte blanche”, especially with AI, given how AI can manipulate us without us realising.

I asked it about Mindf*ck and genocide and it answered to both questions without skirting them. It did try to confuse me with a disambiguation question with the book. Initially it felt as if it wouldn’t answer, until I clarified that I meant the book, rather than swearing gratuitously.

Imagine that you’re out for a walk. You’re looking at the landscape and taking photos with your camera or phone. At the same time your GPS watch, or phone app is recording your location every second. What remains of the walk is a gps track that has a resolution of one set of gps co-ordinates per second, and photos when you took photos. Most of the walk is “lost” because to record video of the entire walk would be too consuming.

It’s ironic that since I started a Runna fitness plan my “fitness” has been going down rather than up. The simple reason is that although the workouts are challenging, they’re challenging for a short time.

Take this morning’s bike ride for example. It was short in distance and time, but high in effort and strain. I had to keep up with specialists. By specialists I mean “people who cycle without touching other sports as often”. I walk, hike, run and cycle every day so I’m excellent at walking, and mediocre at everything else. This is written with humour.

Nine to Five Mac wrote an article about “AI coding tools may be the end of freemium utility apps”. If the last three weeks are any indication of whether AI written apps can replace freemium apps the answer is both yes and no.

The Yes Illusion

Let’s start with the illusion that AI can vibe code your app. If you’re doing something like a task list or snake, or similar then the answer might be yes, to some degree but in that case it requires preparation.

Last night and this morning I have been toying with the idea of the paid tiers and whether they’re worth it. In the proces I told Gemini about my context and it went from advising me the pro tier at 170 CHF per year, to going for the “free” Google AI studio option.

From Gemini to Google AI Studio

I find the pivot interesting because you go from a conversational bot to something more powerful. You go from “How do I do this with this command line tool” to getting python scripts telling you to use the Gemini AI to do things directly rather than passively. It’s the type of pivot that requires the generation of an API key and more.

The Cycplus AS2 is a pocket sized inflator that can easily be taken while cycling with a group or alone. It doesn’t have a display and it doesn’t tell you how much battery but it does inflate a tyre within seconds with minimal effort.

I tested it at home first, to get used to its use. You press it against the valve and then you press again and it starts to inflate. It will do most of the tyre’s inflation within seconds but to get a higher pressure will take longer. I used it to inflate the tyre more than once, when changing the tyre.

Today, for the first time during a bike ride, I had a tyre puncture. I suspect that it wasn’t a tyre puncture but rather that I over-inflated the tyre, and that due to the wet, gravelly conditions of the roads, the inner tube eventually failed.

The irony is that it’s because I checked the tyre pressure that the incident occured. By checking the tyre I inflated it, but when I saw the pressure was fine I decided to inflate once or twice more. That’s why I had the catastrophic failure of the tyre. By catastrophic I mean “minor inconvenience.