There are times when I listen to two or three hours of podcasts a day and I learn from them. I usually listen when I am cooking and when I am walking. For several weeks now I have hardly listened to any podcasts. This is for three reasons.
The first of these is that I spend two to four hours studying a day, so when I go for my walk I think I have listened to the point of saturation and now I’m ready for a change of ideas.
During a walk a few weeks ago I came across L’Harmonica pour les nuls, Harmonica for Dummies, so I picked up the book and within a day or two I had ordered a harmonica to learn the instrument. The harmonica is a small versatile instrument. that can be used to play a range of music.
The greatest advantage with harmonicas is that it fits within a pocket. It takes very little space and can theoretically be taken anywhere.
Updating software is something that we do every single day, often without knowing that it is being updated. WatchOS updated two or three days ago. iOS updated yesterday recently as well. The most notable was Xcode, because it requires several gigabytes of space or it fails to even try, if it detects that there is not enough disk space. I had the same issue with the Garmin ETREX 32x except that in this scenario Garmin Express wipes the device’s memory before it has checked that the computer from which you are running the installation has enough space to proceed.
Yesterday I looked at the wind, and when I saw that it was coming from the east I decided to cycle into it, for the outward journey, and back, with it, on the journey back. Originally my plan was to cycle to Rolle and to turn around but the plan changed. I was cycling and I overtook a woman. I like to challenge myself to overtake everyone. I especially like to overtake everyone, as a personal challenge, until I am too tired.
For three years I did not cycle. For one year it was because I broke my arm while cycling, The second year it was because we were in the first wave of this never-ending pandemic so I preferred not to stray too far from home. The third year it was because the pandemic was still not over, but it felt as if we had a chance. This year is different. This year we know that the Swiss government doesn’t care either way.
Today I went for my daily walk and I saw a shape. I thought, “That looks like a fox” and as I approached i had a doubt about it being a dog and I felt fear but I continued forward anyway. Eventually the fox noticed me, looked at me and then fled the other way. This is good news. This means that the fox was healthy, rather than rabied. It also means that I can keep being relaxed about seeing foxes.
Today I saw a picture of a frog sitting in a sauce pan on a cooker speaking to another, saying “I Know the water is heating up but that’s the next generation’s problem” and this can be a comment on a few things. The first, linear comment is of course about global warming and its consequences for current and future generations. Every generation, we, as children, want to make a better place when we grow up.
The weather was finally dynamic today. The storm warnings were flashing towards Hermance, on the French side of the lake. This gave a nice contrast between the yellow of the Colza fields and the dark threatening clouds behind.
At moments I thought that rain would begin to fall but luckily the doppler radar, and my instincs were correct, so I did not get drenched in rain or pelted with hail. At one point it did feel as though hail could be a possibility.
There are currently two societies. On one side we have those who believe what they are told and take everything at face value. On the other side we have those that look at the bigger picture, that follow international news, and look at the big picture.
The society that believes what they are told without asking questions believes that the pandemic is over and that life is back to normal. They believe that there is no longer a need for masks, and that big events with plenty of people are without danger once again.
Countries like Switzerland recently decided that the pandemic was over because lobbies wanted it to be over. Despite high numbers of infections and the percentage of tests being positive Switzerland decided that the acute phase of the pandemic was over. For them the lack of deaths, and the lack of people in ICUs meant that the pandemic had entered a safe stage.
557 PPM in a shopping centre at around 0845