Month: August 2024

Half Sword demo: I can’t put on my pants

One of my internet pals suggested I try the Half Sword1I have no idea what Half Sword means. I assume you get the pointy part of the sword, at least. demo on Steam. “It uses physics a lot,” he said.

I loaded up the demo and was dismayed to find you can’t rebind the keys, so I had to use WASD. I am weird and use EDSF, but I figured I could adjust for one demo.

Once in the demo proper, I found my character laying on the ground, dressed only in his skivvies. It looked like it would be cold and kind of uncomfortable. I was told to press forward to stand. I did, and I did. I then walked over to a table that had some kind of dagger on it, along with a nice pair of pants. The demo said Press E/Q to interact. I tried both keys but my interaction seemed rather limited. The pants and dagger remained untouched. I eventually sort of rubbed up against the table and managed to knock over a bench next to it. Progress.

I then wandered off into the dark and the music got Very Dramatic. I found another nearby table, with a lamp and an axe. Maybe there was a sword, too? I tried interacting with them. I failed. But then the demo told me to use the mouse to swing my arm. Presumably while holding a weapon, like an axe or sword.

I went back to the first table and swung my arm. I knocked the pants onto the floor. The music continued to be Very Dramatic. I knocked the dagger onto the floor, too.

Then I realized four minutes had passed and exited the demo.

I conclude with a screenshot of my internet pal in the demo. As you can see, he could also not get his pants on, but did actually pick up a weapon, then broke one of his arms wielding it.

Why I don’t take photos on my iPhone 12 using zoom

The iPhone 12 doesn’t have any kind of optical zoom, it digitally “zooms”, which just gives you a mess of pixels vaguely in the shape of what you’re pointing the camera at.

Today, I saw a beaver resting near the Cariboo Dam. It was not especially far away, but not especially close, either. The 250mm telephoto lens on my Canon EOS M50 would have gotten a nice shot.

My iPhone 12 produced this brown ovoid blob with maximum zoom:

I should have added googly eyes.

I’m still not getting a new iPhone.

Run 877: Sun makes you slower

View from Cariboo Dam, pre-run.

I made a tactical error even before setting out for the run: I headed out about an hour later than intended. This notably meant that it would be a little warmer and that the sun would be out.

This turned out to be significant because, as the titles says, the sun makes you slower. While the conditions don’t seem all that different from Monday, the higher temperature, sun and humidity combined to make it feel a lot harder to get the same results. I started slower at 5:41/km, but that’s still pretty good. Dropped to 5:47/km for the second km, which is fine. But the third km my pace cratered to 6:04/km. That is a huge drop and even looking at the numbers now, it doesn’t seem possible.

When I hit that third km, I paused the run, walked forward and then back to where I had paused, probably about 30 seconds of walking in total, then resumed the run. This breather allowed my hart rate to drop to around 130 or so and gave me enough boost to finish with an overall average of 5:51/km. Kinda cheating, but I’ll take it.

Friday looks like it may be partly cloudy and a bit cooler. I’ll take it!

Other than the sun leaching all my atamina, the run was fine. My right leg felt a bit sore, mostly around the shi, on the walk back, but it settled down after a while and in the end it seems fine.

The trail weas unusually busy, especially in the area east of Piper Spit, with people all bunched up with dogs and kids and things. None of this presented any issue, though, which was nice.

The river trail was once again All Dogs Unleashed, but at least the dogs behaved themselves, even if the owners didn’t.

Brunette River, post-run. Not seen: all the dogs scampering about off-leash.

Stats:

Run 877
Average pace: 5:51/km
Training status: Productive
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW, short loop)
Start: 11:13 a.m.
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 29:25
Weather: Mostly sunny
Temp: 20-21°C
Humidity: 71-67%
Wind: light
BPM: 154
Weight: 167.3
Total distance to date: 6,245 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: HOKA Speedgoat 6 (30/59/89)

Defeated by napping

One of the reasons I was not perturbed at moving from my Apple Watch to a Garmin Forerunner 255, which is a notably less capable smart watch and with a worse screen (though it works great in bright light, the opposite of the Apple Watch) is that I felt the Apple Watch gamified too many health aspects. I get it, the design is meant to prod and poke you into doing more, ultimately for your own benefit. But eventually it just felt like nagging.

The Garmin watch, by contrast, makes it easy to see your states, and awards you badges when you hit certain milestones, but it’s otherwise pretty quiet, so the gasmification mostly comes from within.

It turns out, I started gamifying my sleep and didn’t really notice it.

Specifically, if you get a sleep score of 75% or above for seven days in a row, you earn the Sleep Streak™ badge. I like earning this because badges, plus it means I’m sleeping well! This trained me to stick closely to my set sleep schedule, which the watch uses to issue relevant reminders before nappy time. It also puts the watch into a kind of sleep mode, where the display no longer lights up when you raise your wrist–you must specifically tap the backlight button.

Yesterday, IU found myself feeling in need of an afternoon nap (probably due to the run the day before) and the watch substracted nap time from my total recommended sleep for the night. This meant I could a) Go to bed at the usual time and get up earlier b) Go to bed an hour later with no penalty or c) find a way to screw this up somehow.

I chose Option C.

I went to bed late, but late enough that, even though I slept in a little past my usual wake-up time, I still didn’t hit the lower-than-usual minimum. My sleep streak ended. I had a sad.

I have resolved to return to a more normal sleeping pattern tonight. I swear! See: #$@!

Linux Mint, Part 7: Do not touch the Mint

I’m not sure if this is really Part 7, but it feels close enough.

The other night I thought1, “Wouldn’t it be fun to replace the Cinnamon desktop of Linux Mint with the GNOME desktop used by Ubuntu?” It worked, but was a little glitchy. I decided to uninstall it. Instead, I made Mint unbootable.

After some valiant attempts at repair, I ended up fixing the issue by completely re-installing Mint. I am very good at this now. And it actually went pretty fast. I did have a backup made, but it did not work, for reasons. Probably because I made it unbootable, too.

Anyway, lesson learned! If I want to play around with GNOME, I will do so in Ubuntu, which is still installed in another partition and which I have yet to make unbootable.

Here is a picture of a mint. Or a box of mints, which is close enough.

Photo by Erik Mclean
  1. Yes, this is a weird thing to think. ↩︎

Run 876: Clouds make you faster

View from Cariboo Dam, pre-run: Actual clouds and temperatures in the teens.

Weirdly, I started today’s run at almost the exact same time as the last one, off my only two minutes.

I was originally planning on running counter-clockwise, but changed my mind when I got to the lake and did a clockwise short loop, turning around just past the halfway mark–which is unusual for me, because I usually run about 3 km before turning back, as I like the little psychological boost of having less to run on the way back.

Conditions were different enough to be noticeable (listed in order of importance):

  1. 18C instead of 22-24C
  2. Cloudy instead of sunny
  3. Humidity in the 70s instead of 60s

The higher humidity was effectively cancelled out by the cloud cover and cooler temperature. The combination made a huge difference in my energy level. Unlike the previous run, I did not try to store any reserves during the first km. I didn’t go all-out, either, I just ran at a steady pace. That pace turned out to be 5:31/km, which was a lot faster than I expected, but I maintained a pace of around 5:48 for the next three km, and wrapped up with 5:35/km on the final stretch, for an average of 5:42/km. This is a staggering 25 seconds faster than last Wednesday’s run, resulting in a total time more than two minutes shorter. Another indicator of how better the conditions were: My BPM dropped to 151 vs. 156 for the previous run. I was faster and didn’t even work as hard.

Clouds really do make you faster.

The energy boost even persisted through the walk home. It was weird, because I was actually concerned I would feel slow and tired. I am happy to be wrong!

There were a number of other runners out, but the trail was otherwise pretty quiet. Clouds make you faster, but they also scare away people. Some were dressed like it was suddenly mid-fall.

And while the lake trail was fine, the river trail was once again a Dogs Run Free zone, with multiple dogs running around sans leash. I’d call the city of Metro Vancouver or whatever, but know it’s pointless. It’s basically an honour system with no real enforcement, and about half of all dog owners seem to think their dogs are too precious for leashes. Whatever.

It still doesn’t take away from my buzz over such a pleasant and zippy run!

Looking west, just past the Cariboo Dam, post-run.

Stats:

Run 876
Average pace: 5:42/km
Training status: Productive
Location: Burnaby Lake (CW, short loop)
Start: 11:55 a.m.
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 28:41
Weather: Cloudy
Temp: 18°C
Humidity: 76-74%
Wind: light
BPM: 151
Weight: 166.9
Total distance to date: 6,240 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: HOKA Speedgoat 6 (25/51/76)

Linux shenanigans: Run all the distros (and desktop environments)

Today, after a few hiccups, I installed Ubuntu, splitting the drive that has Linux Mint installed roughly equally between the two. The GRUB1GRand Unified Bootloader bootloader was automatically recognized by Ubuntu, and it simply added the Ubuntu-related options to it. And, of course, made Ubuntu the default option.

As I’d just re-installed Mint, I didn’t spend too much time puttering around, but I puttered a bit. My initial impression is that I think I prefer the GNOME desktop to Cinnamon, but prefer the overall greater customization of Mint. Also, I think I will limit myself to four operating systems for now, because this is all quite silly (they are Windows 11, macOS 14 Sonoma, Linux Mint and Ubuntu).

Cinnamon is fine as a desktop environment. In fact, if you’re coming from Windows, it will feel extremely comfortable, but that familiarity made me realize that a Start menu with a bunch of pop-out menus of apps is maybe not the best way to present options (Cinnamon emulates the Windows XP/7 era of the Start menu, which is probably not as good as you might remember).

Anyway, I am now thinking of installing GNOME on Mint, which will likely be a bad idea, but I love a challenge, or something.

And I’m in a puttering mindset these days. I think it’s helping me to unwind. Or unravel. We’ll find out.

Also, unrelated, I love cinnamon toast and now I want some.

Birding, August 10, 2024: Steps this way

Where: Burnaby Lake (Burnaby), Mundy Park (Coquitlam)
Weather: Sunny, 19-27°C

The Outing

Burnaby Lake

Phillips Point at Burnaby Lake.

I suggested Burnaby Lake, not because I wanted to get a lot of steps, but because it has a lot of tree canopy and if we’re not going to see many birds because of the time of year, we may as well not see them while in the shade.

But we did see a few, including a brown creeper right near the bridge over Eagle Creek near Piper Spit. Unlike previous creepers, this one was hyperactive and was constantly flitting from tree to tree. This would prove to be the standard behaviour of nearly every bird we encountered, for reasons unknown to me.

Piper spit was again bereft of shorebirds, though the water level was a bit lower, so maybe they’ll be back again soon. We did spot a few yellowlegs near the dam, which is an odd place for them to hang out (they walked on the lily pads). Mostly it was geese (one of which clamped onto the tail of another in the water before they separated, because there must always be goose drama), mallards and wood ducks. We did see what must have been a late brood of baby wood ducks following mom around and chowing on one of the lily pad flowers.

The rest of the lake afforded a few nice views, but not much in the way of birds. There were barn swallows at the rowing club, but they were elusive as always, and a cormorant, but it was standing atop a distant pole.

Overall, though, it was a pleasant, if step-intensive outing.

Mundy Park

Lost Lake at Mundy Park.

Nic suggested the community garden at Tlahutum Regional Park after lunch, which would have meant minimal walking, but would be entirely out in the sun. I countered with Mundy Park, which we’d only been to once before.

It proved step-intensive as well, but there were a few birds, including some blue-winged teals (we think– some of the coloration didn’t seem to match up with what the Merlin app was offering). And there were turtles enjoying the sun and water at Lost Lake, which we totally found.

Mostly it was relatively cool and shady paths through wooded areas that were deep enough to actually get you away from traffic noise (unlike Burnaby Lake).

Despite the relative lack of birds (and the erratic behaviour of them), it was a fine day to be out, we didn’t get ankle-deep in black goo, and I set a new Garmin Forerunner record for steps, which stand at 36,199 as I type this.

The Shots

Soon™

The Birds (and other critters). Rare or rarely-seen birds highlighted in bold.

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • American robin (probably)
  • Barn swallow
  • Bewick’s wren (heard, not seen)
  • Black-capped chickadee
  • Brown creeper
  • Brown-headed cowbird
  • House finch (maybe?)
  • Red-winged blackbird
  • Song sparrow
  • Spotted towhee

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

  • Canada goose
  • Blue-winged teal (?)
  • Green-winged teal
  • Mallard
  • Wood duck

Common:

  • American crow
  • Rock pigeon

Raptors:

  • None!

Non-birds:

  • Western painted turtle
  • Assorted pollinators
  • Dragonflies all up in the hizzy
  • Various butterflies and such

I have stopped updating my apps

I view this as a positive thing. Really!

On my iPhone and iPad, app updates are pretty much a daily thing. And the update notes are typically “Bug fixes and improvements”, which is so generic it tells me nothing, other than the developers are not actively trying to make the app worse.

I could run automatic updates, but that cedes too much control, and an update could go sideways. If I approve each update, I may hear about a bad one before applying it and avoid some trouble.

For a time, that red badge on the App Store icon showing me the number of updates bothered me, but something clicked in my brain that made me just not care about it anymore. So now I don’t update my apps and the badge number goes up, and I’m fine with that.

I still go in and selectively update some apps here and there, usually if the update seems useful or adds something that sounds enticing (this is rare).

Anyway, this is just one small piece in me achieving my own personal kind of Zen. More to come!

Rooting out the theory behind tripping

Back on July 26 I tripped, a little, while on a run. This gave me PTSD flashbacks to the run in August 2016 when I tripped and fell, my right foot having found and lodged firmly against a not insubstantial tree root, which then caused me to twist and fall onto the trail, skidding across the gravel on my side, something I do not recommend.

After my run this past Wednesday, I returned to the scene of the trip-but-not-fall to better determine what my pesky right foot had snagged on this time.

I came away with some suspicions, but no irrefutable evidence.

First, the crime trip scene. This is the best place to trip, because it is a mix of sun and shade, which is difficult for your eyes to adjust to. Tree roots and other obstacles can hide in the shady bits, secretly waiting for you, given away only by their quiet sinister giggles.

Shade and sun: Perfect triping weather!

At first, I thought I might have hit an exposed stone. It’s large, but smooth, so it would make sense that I might trip on it, but not actually be dragged down by hitting it. But the stone is nearly in the middle of the path, I tripped on my right foot and I run on the right side of the trail. Even a bit of drift would not allow me to have encountered this stone of potential evil intent with my right foot.

This large exposed stone is likely innocent.

Then I noticed this small stone, which is close enough to be in the tripping zone, yet small enough to not haul me down.

Arrow provided in case it’s not obvious.

This was the only other suspect, so it was either this little stone, or something else that has since moved on, an invisible rock, gremlins, aliens or a forest poltergeist. Or maybe I just tripped for no reason at all. Bodies can be weird.

In any case, I’m still slightly paranoid to run this section of trail clockwise again, but I will, eventually.