I chose this generated image because you can’t see the freaky fingers
Well, as many thoughts as a smartwatch can have.
My Garmin Forerunner 255 got a software update recently that allows it to track naps. I don’t take naps very often, but I did take one after a run last week and sure enough, the watch tracked the nap. It said I picked a good time to nap, but napped too long.
Today it tracked my second nap. Except I was awake the entire time. And I was playing a computer game.
Apparently, PowerWash Simulator (which is exactly what it sounds like) is such a mellow game that my watch thought I was napping while I was playing it. It also said I napped too long again. I can verify it is indeed a relaxing game, but now I’m curious about what my stats (heart rate, etc.) look like when I’m playing. Is the nap-tracking glitchy, or do I enter such a relaxed state that playing the game is effectively the same as sleeping? Questions!
It is time again for me to randomly go through old issues of The Computer Paper on The Internet Archive and delight in the old-timey world of tech print ads.
Behold, an ad from the November 1999 issue for a Samsung multi-function printer:
Business woman has her arms crossed and means business. Also, is she leaning on something we can’t see or just have good balance? My favourite part may be the single word New! callout, as if it’s a feature. I can’t mock too much, though, because my current Brother multi-function printer can still fax, too.
Fun facts (fax?):
The samsungcanada.com URL is actually available. It doesn’t even redirect! (The current URL is samsung.com/ca.) With the way companies scarf up addresses, this kind of surprises me.
As near as I can tell, Samsung no longer makes printers of any sort. They do offer a smart fridge, though.
Bonus:
In the same issue is this ad for Stupid Computers. It is amazing. stupidcomputers.com does not have a website, but according to dan.com (“a GoDaddy brand”) it has been sold.
Also, uh, what kind of gun is space chick holding there?
I remember at least part of a dream I had last night. It went like this (insert dreamy music and transition effects):
I was in a large house, possibly a mansion, and had a sniper rifle. But wait, it’s not what it sounds like! It was a pew-pew laser rifle, like you use in laser tag. In the dream I apparently had a reputation of being a good shot (this is definitely not taken from any actual skills at video games and/or real life) and so even though we were in some kind of timed game that was ostensibly a free-for-all, it was really Everyone vs. Me.
I would emerge from a room and take a shot. I didn’t have time to use the scope, so I’d just quickly eyeball using the sight, and down an opponent would go. After a while, when they probably started thinking about how I was never not going to use my laser rifle, I switched it up and began using a grenade launcher. No, I don’t know how you could possibly simulate a grenade launcher in a game of laser tag, but in my dream, it not only worked, it worked very well.
I woke up just as the timer was running down, and I was declared victor, going undefeated. Basically, in this dream, I was a complete badass. Why I had this dream, I can’t say. Maybe my subconscious felt I needed a little ego boost for the end of the year, and delivered it in a way I could understand. I’m pretty sure the grenade launcher was due to recently rewatching Aliens. I had better luck than they did.
I am a visual person and aesthetics matter to me. Sometimes they matter (a little) more than functionality.
One of the nice things about the federated social media platform known as Mastodon is that it allows for a host of third-party clients to view its content.
I tried several Windows-specific clients and found all of them to look kind of ugly. I don’t want to use an ugly app, even if it’s functional. It’s 2023, we’ve evolved beyond MIDI files and poorly compressed animated GIFs. I eventually settled on a web client called Elk. It looks a bit like Twitter and is nice enough. Then I came across Phanpy, which, despite its terrible name, looks *really* nice, even if it’s perhaps a bit too aggressively minimalist. But it looks so nice!
In fact, I like its look so much I’ve actually started favouring it on the Mac, where I own the Mona Mastodon client. Here’s how each looks, along with the official Mastodon web client, focusing on one post, all of them running in dark mode, because light mode makes me run and hide under the bed. No scaling has been applied to the images.
Mona (Mac client):
Mastodon (official web client):
Elk (web client):
Phanpy (web client):
Some thoughts:
Overall layout: Phanpy is by far the most compact, but that doesn’t necessarily mean better. It does put posts in a nicely rounded box, though, which is a pleasing visual touch. Phanpy puts the image inline with the story title and subhead, which reduces the size of the image. The others are all very similar in layout. Oddly, even though Phanpy offers the most compact layout, I think it does the best job in terms of spacing around the content, giving it a lighter feel, even in dark mode. This is done mostly by simply making the interface wider, allowing everything to spread out a bit more. Compare this to Mona, which has a bunch of empty space sitting to the right of the image.
Phanpy also does the best job of implementing a card-style interface, where each post is clearly separate from the next. Mona is also pretty good, though the contrast between posts and the background is more subtle (a to-taste thing, really).
Colour: The official web client uses a more purple-black, keeping with its theme colour, which is purple. Phanpy is a bit lighter than Elk or Mona, and I think looks a bit better.
Text: Mona wins here, with the sharpest text of the bunch. Elk is probably the worst, but still not actually bad.
Iconography: Phanpy requires you to open a post to see any icons, part of its minimalist thing. The others are all clean and functional, but not exactly delightful. They do their job. Note that several clients allow you to customize the icons. The official client probably has the least attractive icons of the bunch, but again, they are perfectly serviceable.
Options: Elk and Phanpy offer minimal options. Mona is the clear winner here, as it has options out the wazoo. It probably has options for the wazoo.
Conclusion: No one client does everything perfectly. I think my ideal would be Mona’s text/icons/non-minimalism, combined with Phanpy’s aesthetics and use of white space.
This post prompted me to dive into Mona’s options and tweak its interface again, bringing it closer to Phanpy’s. We’ll see if it sticks. The nice part is simply having the abundance of choices to start with. Now, if only a Mona-quality app existed on Windows…
Mona (after tweaking the UI per the above paragraph):
I’m typing this in Firefox running on Linux Mint. I am also thoughtfully stroking my neckbeard as I gather my thoughts. Well, not really, but I do need to shave.
I occasionally think and write about making choices on who I do business and interact with, especially on the internet where the products are more intangible–software and services, not physical locations and goods. Avoiding a bad restaurant saves me gas (in multiple ways), avoiding a bad service or software is more about staking out a moral or ethical position, usually accompanied by me noting the fact somewhere online (this blog, social media, etc.) with the intent to broadcast my position to let others know where I stand, and to influence them to join me (JOIN ME), because if I think a company is evil, you should, too!
(I realize it is more nuanced than that, but go with it for now.)
The thing today, though, in 2023 and soon to be 2024, software and services have increasingly been consolidated into an ever-smaller number of mega-corporations, all of which, to varying degrees, engage in platform decay or, as Cory Doctorow more colourfully calls it, enshittification. Basically, this means most of your choices are bad, the degree just varies.
Possible solutions:
Try even harder to go full FOSS (Free and Open Source Software), completely avoiding the offerings of the big companies (this can also apply to services or platforms, though it may be trickier)
Avoid the internet
Some combination of the first two
I’m opting for #3.
I’m writing about this now because I have come to another one of those points where I have to decide if I want to make a stand against a particular service/platform/piece of software, and it’s made me think about the whole thing and how so much of what we do online is wrapped up in one of the big tech companies. For me, this includes:
Microsoft:
Primary operating system (Windows 11)
Primary email (Outlook)
Cloud storage (OneDrive)
Occasional apps (Excel, Word mostly)
Apple:
iPhone
iPad Pro
Secondary computer (Mac Studio)
AirPods (for all of the above)
iCloud (mostly for photos)
Apple Music
Apple Watch Traded this for a Garmin Forerunner 255 a year ago
Google:
Google Maps (occasionally)
Gmail (only checking it to keep it active)
YouTube
There’s more, but you get the idea. In terms of hardware, I’m deep in the Apple ecosystem and software and services-wise, I am beholden largely to Microsoft. On the plus side, as giant evil tech companies go, I would rank both as less terrible than others, like Google and Meta. Microsoft, who for a time, had almost rehabilitated their reputation by embracing open source, Linux and giving out Windows 10 for free, has fallen in the last few years by going hard into ads, trying to monetize everything (the weather app in Windows 11 now has ads) and junking up their otherwise good Edge browser with shopping and other clutter/services. They have also junked up Windows 11, too (though have also continued to make improvements). Apple touts privacy and security, but it’s really about lock-in and making sure you never step outside their walled gardens, where they control everything. Some people see this as a positive!
I have made efforts to move away from the big tech companies–as mentioned, I’m making this post in Linux Mint–but my efforts are a bit scattershot, a bit piecemeal. I am always looking to improve.
And now I’ve reached a point where I’m making another small step to move away from a service that has adopted policies and positions I fundamentally disagree with. It’s not even the first time this particular company has garnered press over their stance.
I’m speaking of Substack. I wrote about the company previously. That was almost two years ago, and in the time since the platform has become even more popular with right-wing extremists, including literal Nazis. The founders of Substack recently confirmed that they are OK with Nazis being on their platform because censorship is bad, and they are also good with collecting Nazi money from those that charge for subs. Popehat, aka Ken White, neatly deconstructs Substack’s position here.
I am OK with Substack cozying up to Nazis and taking their money–it’s their choice to do so. Likewise, it is my choice to not be associated with a company or service that cozies up to Nazis and takes their money. I’ve decided to move my piddly newsletter, which I recently chose to revive, off of Substack, probably to another service called Buttondown, though that’s not 100% confirmed yet.
I’ll update on how this goes, as well as further updating about how others are responding to Substack’s now official position of “Nazis are OK!” I subscribe to several Substacks myself, and am very curious to see how the authors of these will react.
View from Cariboo Dam, pre-run. A little blue sky on the first day of winter.
Another late start, but not as late. With possible showers, I wore two layers, though for the run, which was partly sunny, they were not needed. Post-run, the wind, which had been calm, suddenly picked up and that second layer came in very handy for the 9 km walk back home. The run was otherwise pretty mild for the first day of winter.
I started out very sluggish for reasons I can’t entirely explain. Maybe I wanted to conserve energy for a big finish? Maybe I secretly wanted to be having a bubble bath instead? Whatever it was, I eventually shook it off, increasing my pace every km for a final average of 5:47/km and even better, a BPM of only 148. Pretty nice way to end the week in all. My lap times broke down thusly:
1 km: 5:57
2 km: 5:55
3 km: 5:50
4 km: 5:40
5 km: 5:32
It’s not often I have a gap of 25 seconds between laps, but it happened today!
I felt fine, otherwise, not even thinking about the knees or more generally, my legs.
There were a couple of dogs off-leash (grr to the owners) but they at least stayed out of the way. It seemed a little quieter than usual for a Friday–maybe people are too busy wrapped up in holiday shenanigans right now. Which reminds me, my next run would be on Monday, which is Christmas day. Will I go out and jog while people are unwrapping their presents? Maybe!
View from the bridge over Deer Lake Brook. Zoom in to see the hooded merganser!
Stats:
Run 841
Average pace: 5:47/km
Training status: Productive
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Start: 11:53 a.m.
Distance: 5:03 km
Time: 29:08
Weather: Partly cloudy
Temp: 8ºC
Humidity: 84%
Wind: light1The wind picked up significantly almost right after I stopped running
BPM: 148
Weight: 171.0
Total distance to date: 6095 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: HOKA Speedgoat 5 (230/428/658 km)
4,823 translates to about 253 posts per year, or 21 posts per month. That’s not bad when you consider how seldomly I posted in the early years of this blog (especially 2005-2015 or so). I’m not saying the quality has improved at the same rate, but there’s some decent stuff here, and in the near future, I will try to make it easier to find, so that others can better question my sense of humour, priorities, and fashion sense.
Yes, I’m a few days early, but unless there is a radical shift in the weather in the next few days, we will not only not see snow for Christmas, it will continue to be unusually mild, with most days averaging 10-11C, where the norm is 5-6C.
As I look out my office window, I can see green grass and, well, weeds, but everything is pleasantly green. I don’t need to wear five layers to go outside. I might get wet, depending on the particular time and day. It’s nice.
And yes, could this be climate change? Is this mild weather secretly bad and a dark omen of a crazy weather future? Maybe, but I think this time it’s more due to the effects from El Niño, which came in this year and didn’t really affect summer much (last year’s summer was a lot hotter and humid), but does seem to be taking the chill off winter. And I’m not going to object to that.
Tomorrow it is officially the first day of winter. If it is snowing, I will update this post to add a nelsonlaughing.gif aimed at myself.
I was originally going to postpone today’s run, to give myself some extra time to recover from Monday’s torrid outing, but it was extremely mild, and I felt guilty, so I went out and did a relatively mellow run on the river trail.
It was cloudy but 11C, which is about twice the normal high for this day and warm enough to be an early spring temperature, rather than one you’d expect here a few days before winter officially begins. This meant I only wore a single layer up top and it was fine. I probably could have worn my usual running t-shirt and still been fine.
I did see two other guys running, both wearing jackets and, I assume, sweating profusely. One even had gloves on. Gloves! At 11C! Crazy.
Anyway, I didn’t stretch before running and my left thigh felt a bit stiff starting out. This is also, coincidentally, the part of my legs that gets worked on in the roller stretching exercise I’ve been skipping (I am still doing the others). I suppose I should get back to doing it again. I did pick up the pace toward the end (the final km was 5:38/km), but I am content with the average of 5:48/km, especially with an average BPM of a mere 147.
Overall, I’m glad I got out, because who knows how many more absurdly mild days like this we’ll get in the next month or two.
Brunette River, post-run. All frothy and such.
Stats:
Run 840
Average pace: 5:48/km
Training status: Productive
Location: Brunette River Trail
Start: 12:21 p.m.
Distance: 5:03 km
Time: 29:09
Weather: Cloudy
Temp: 11ºC
Humidity: 88%
Wind: light
BPM: 147
Weight: 171.8
Total distance to date: 6090 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: HOKA Speedgoat 5 (225/415/640 km)
I like and use Signal, it’s a decent messaging app that prioritizes privacy and security. It has end-to-end encryption and all that good stuff. Most people will still use WhatsApp (or Facebook Messenger–both owned by the same company) and I accept that.
But the thing I like most about Signal are its weird, quirky stickers. Since it’s not run by a mega-corporation, a lot of the stickers have a sillier, less manufactured feel to them.
Also, a lot of nudity and sex, apparently.
The top four most viewed Signal stickers of all time are blurred out on the Signal stickers website because they are NSFW. The rest are cats and Rick Astley.
This is as accurate a summation of the world in 2023 as any.
View from Cariboo Dam, pre-run. Mostly clear to start.
KNEE ALERT: A short way into the fourth km, my left knee began to feel stiff. I kept running, and it seemed to be okay after a bit, but I am noting it here in case it turns into SOMETHING.
I decided to flip directions and run clockwise today and did a full loop (5K run), as I want to prep for a possible 10K soon™. As mentioned above, my left knee started feeling stiff after the 4K mark, but it seemed to settle down and overall I felt fine for the rest of the run. It was a bit cooler, but still very calm and my pace of 5:38/km is, somewhat remarkably, exactly the same as the last time I did a clockwise run.
As I left for the run, it was mostly sunny. That changed to partly sunny for the run, then pretty much cloudy by the end. At least I got back before any possible showers. I took before and after shots from the dam, and they almost look like different days. Conditions were otherwise fine, with the only complication coming when I hit the second boardwalk, shortly before the 4K mark. There’s a nearby house on private property, and they apparently have a wood-burning stove or something, because the smell of wood smoke suddenly appeared and hung thick in the air for a couple of hundred meters. It’s not exactly pleasant stuff to breathe in while running, but I knew it would fade away after a few minutes, and it did.
There were multiple herons about. I have no idea why they were so prominent today, but I like to think they were quietly observing and probably laughing because we have to run and they can just fly.
While the run went fairly well, possible knee issue notwithstanding, the time before the run had three dog incidents, one minor, one major, and one incidental:
Minor: I was heading down the trail/stairs from Hume Park to Lower Hume Park. A woman with a giant dog on leash was coming up. The dog was not acting aggressive. The woman began to make some motions to move to the side to let me pass and initially I was going to do so, but she kept fussing and something about her body language struck me as off. I stopped, gave a bit of a shrug, and turned to detour around and take the other stairs down. She said, “Don’t worry, he’s friendly” and she may have been right, but it felt weird and I wasn’t in the mood to take chances.
Major: Walking on the river trail toward the lake. Two women are ahead of me, both with large dogs, though not as large as the pony-sized dog mentioned above. One dog is leashed. The woman with the other dog leans down and appears to be letting the dog off-leash as I approach on the other side of the trail. The dog immediately takes off directly at me. I stop. It veers away and wanders past me. The owner calls it. It ignores the owner. She calls again, it keeps meandering off. I tell her, calmly, twice, to leash her dog, then keep walking. I look back and she has caught up to her dog. I can see more people closing in the distance. She looks like she is going to just hold the dog by the collar, but then maybe moves to put the leash back on. I couldn’t tell at this point. What I can verify is that I sarcastically said, “No, don’t leash your dog” several times. I don’t think it was loud enough for her to hear. But maybe.
Incidental: I am atop the dam, ready to take my pre-run photo. A woman is approaching with a dog on leash. I move down to where the space on top of the dam expands, so I can give them extra room to walk by. As they do, she lets the dog go to where I am to give me a good sniff, completely defeating the purpose of my move.
There were also dogs during the run, but all were leashed and well-behaved there. I grow ever less impressed with the average dog owner, though.
But the run went well!
The lake in a reflective mood, post-run
Bonus shot!
A great blue heron standing strangely close to the trail, post-run
Stats:
Run 839
Average pace: 5:38/km
Training status: Maintaining
Location: Burnaby Lake (CW)
Start: 10:14 a.m.
Distance: 5:03 km
Time: 28:22
Weather: Partly sunny
Temp: 7ºC
Humidity: 88%
Wind: light
BPM: 154
Weight: 171.1
Total distance to date: 6085 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: HOKA Speedgoat 5 (220/411/631 km)
