Reviews

Last night I was thinking about the act of shaving and what a pleasure it is, For a long time I saw it as a daily chore, which is why I switched to an electric razor for years. Eventually the blades dulled so I looked for alternatives before deciding to try safety razor shaving, and I find it to be extremely pleasant. 

Learning Process

Shaving requires a methodical approach. It requires wetting the face, lathering the soap, shaving one way, lathering again, shaving the second direction, lathering again, shaving the final direction. That methodical process is what makes safety razor shaving such a pleasure. It is ritualistic, like getting ready for a dive, or other potentially dangerous activities. The better your routine is, the safer you will be. 

Yesterday I spent some time looking through Apple Health Data Sources. I see that there are plenty of data sources. These are the Apple watch, the iphone, Alltrails, move, connect, stepsapp, pacer, Suunto, Ingress and three more that are marked as inactive.

Move is the app that gets data from some Casio watches. Connect is Garmin connect and gets step data from Garmin devices. If I take steps and they are logged with a casio or a garmin device they do not count in iOS apps but if I take steps with Garmin and Casio devices without also wearing the Apple watch the same steps are not counted.

For 92 CHF you can buy the Casio GBD-800-1B from conrad via Galaxus and it will track you steps 24hrs a day and map your walks without you pressing a single button. This means that you can track your life, without thinking about it.

The problem with watches from the last five or so years is that they track steps, heart rate and more 24hrs a day, but need to be charged, and want to know what you’re doing. They invade your life. “Are you walking now”, “you should get up and walk for one minute”, “you should go to sleep.”

Walking and taking steps could be seen as boring. It’s something we do every day, without thinking about it. At conferences we can easily take 20,000 steps a day, when we’re standing for the entire day, with barely any opportunities, or need to sit, except when eating or getting from A to B. The Steps App is a way of seeing step counts in a variety of ways.

With the insights tab you have information about your best week, month and year. It shows you theoretical distance, time spent stepping, theoretical energy burn, and floors climbed, with compatible devices. On my best week I climbed 253 floors, walked 118 km over 24hrs 39 mins and burned 6243 kcals. My best step day was on the 23rd of August 2018. I took 40,142 steps. That was a theoretical 31.3km over 6hrs 45 and 188 floors.

Recently I have read three out of four DI Barton books and I enjoy them. One of the things that I enjoyed about these books is that I’m interested in both sides of the story, rather than reading about character A but being frustrated when reading about character B. With these books I like both.

The first book is about a seasonal killer, and it moves on from there. I could give more information but I don’t want to spoil the books for you. These books are available via Audible’s Premium plus package, for the first three books, and you need to spend one credit per book for the last three books.

I bought the Garmin Instinct Solar because I was interested to see how the Solar option works. As with most watches the solar panels take several hours to recharge the watch, even during summer heatwaves. The Solar part is great, if you’re in Spain and leave your watch to recharge in the sun while you do something else.

This leaving the watch alone for hours, as it charges, is a paradox, since other metrics cannot be tracked, rest, heart rate, steps. They’re all stagnant whilst the watch charges for several hours in the sun. Having said this, if you use the watch as a watch, and you spend the entire day in the sun, then it will fill its role fantastically. I had it tell me that it had 99 days of power, at the current rate of charge and discharge, while in Spain.

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.

For a while I had a mac book air and I used it for everything. I saw the mac book air as the machine to use for everything except for video editing. That’s what the mac book pro was for. Eventually I sold the Mac Book Air and then I took the MBP to an event and it was stolen and I found myself without a machine.

I regretted selling the mac book air then, because if I had kept the mac book air then I would not have taken the MBP and it would not have been stolen.

Today I went for my first flight with the DJI Mini SE and it feels very familiar, after flying a spark so frequently, until I crashed that drone. I would have replaced the spark but I didn’t because it would either cost two thirds to replace the old one, or cost a lot to buy a new drone, with batteries and the rest of the gear. I waited. I didn’t wait for four weeks, four months, or four seasons. I waited for two years, until I saw the DJI Mini SE was about to come out.

Leslie - Jan 3, 2022

These long walks.treks fascinate me as well. I’m not at all religious, but I think the experience of walking for days, stopping in small hotels/B&Bs along the way, connecting with other walkers, would be wonderful. Someday, someday!

The easiest walk to do is the Via Alpina route that starts in Liechtenstein and ends in Montreux. A train ride to the start, and then walk back towards “home”. Physically it would be demanding as it is through the Alps, It’s around 21 stages.