Today’s edition (linked above) includes a shot of Mars taken from the Mars Express explorer, which launched in 2003 and is still working and sending back shots like this one.
I like it so much I’ve made it my desktop wallpaper and am finding excuses to close windows, so I can see it. I love the clarity and the two standout details–the cute little moon of Phobos and the gigantic Olympus Mons volcano, which is about twice as high as Mt. Everest and around 600 km wide.
As I said, space is neat.
Here’s a 2K version. The newsletter has links to versions that go all the way up to 6K.
Click to embiggen, because you will want to embiggen this.
View from Cariboo Dam, pre-run: cloudy and cooler.
It’s Labour Day, which is a stat holiday, and that means bonus people on the trail for my run!
Likely due to extensive cloud cover, the crowds were smaller and actually were not an issue at all. Once again, people lived up the ideal of the polite Canadian. Dogs were leashed, people were accommodating and the weather was perfectly pleasant for running, with the temperature right around 20 and a pleasant breeze helping with the higher humidity.
As a result, I lopped a full 11 seconds off my previous run, coming in with an average of 5:40/km. I even had the gas to get 5:29/km in the last lap. Another small bonus: despite the increase in speed, my BPM was down slightly, to 154.
The trail had a few more slugs than I expected, so there was a decent amount of dodging. I am pleased to report no slug families were orphaned today.
In less pleasant news, the resurfacing of the trail from the rowing pavilion to the bridge at Deer Lake Brook is…not great? I am reserving final judgment, as I’m not 100% sure they are done yet, but the portion of the trail from the bridge to where the trail splits is especially lumpy and uneven now. It was actually much smoother and flatter before the resurfacing, so they’ve essentially downgraded it. It’s easily the worst resurfacing job I’ve seen since I started running at Burnaby Lake in 2011. But like I said, maybe they aren’t done, so I’ll give it a few more weeks and see how it shakes (or evens) out.
Overall, though, this was a fine run in good conditions and the crowds were a pleasant non-factor. Yay.
View from the bridge on Deer Lake Brook. Every where you look, it’s gonna be lily pads.
Stats:
Run 881 Average pace: 5:40/km Training status: Maintaining Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW) Start: 10:45 a.m. Distance: 5.03 km Time: 28:32 Weather: Cloudy Temp: 19-20°C Humidity: 81-78% Wind: light to moderate BPM: 153 Weight: 167.6 Total distance to date: 6,265 km Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation) Shoes: HOKA Speedgoat 6 (50/106/156)
When I got my first PC in 1994 (30 years ago!) I had to choose between Intel or AMD for the CPU. I chose AMD because their Am486 DX-40 CPU was both faster than the 33 MHz Intel equivalent, and cheaper. Win-win!
It served me well for several years.
Around the same time, a friend of mine, flush with money earned by working on the railroad (all the live long day) also got his own PC, but because he was Mr. Moneypants, he got a tricked out Intel 486 CPU running at 66 MHz.
We both had the game Crusader: No Remorse, which came out in 1995 and remains one of my favourite PC games of all time, despite having a shall we say, somewhat inelegant control scheme.
You can’t see any in the screenshot below, but if you look at the flashing red light on the wall, it’s about the same size as fans you would see spinning away in the game, as fans do. And this is where I saw that 26 MHz could make a big difference–on my friend’s PC, the fans spun smoothly. On mine, they hitched, like the wiring in them was funky or something. It made me a bit sad, and a little jealous.
Crusader: No Remorse (1995). Not shown: The million exploding barrels littering most levels.
Today, 26 MHz is about as relevant to CPUs as the first horseless carriages are to today’s electric vehicles, but back in the 1990s every new processor (save budget models) brought significant, noticeable speed boosts. It was in that environment that tech sites like AnandTech flourished, and I can see why it and other similar sites are dying off now–today, most people buy laptops and just deal with whatever it has when it comes to gaming (unless they are hardcore enough to seek out gaming laptops), or you have the enthusiast/gamer market where people aren’t looking for all-around good systems, but ones that can excel at playing very demanding games, cost oodles of money and have enough lights on them to be seen from space.
But yeah, for a time, if you wanted smoothly spinning fans in your games, a couple of hundred dollars more could buy you that.
Weather is still generally summer-like (today’s forecast high is 29C, which is a whopping 7 degrees higher than the average), but more comfy (except for today).
That more comfy weather is ideal for running.
My birthday, yay! I have always maintained that having a birthday is better than the alternative.
I don’t have to return to school.
Two stat holidays if you work for someone else.
Some of the leaves start to turn and look all pretty up in the hizzy.
School supplies are on sale. I don’t need them but whenever I see big displays of pens, paper, binders and notepads, I always want to buy one of everything.
September bad:
Days get noticeably shorter. The sun is already setting before 8 p.m.
In a weird way, I kind of miss the start of school. But I’m referencing when you’re still a little kid, and starting a new school year is an adventure, and a year feels like it stretches out forever.
We officially move from summer (my favourite season, I don’t care what the haters say!) to fall, which starts out fine and ends with skeletal trees, a few hours of daylight, and everything gray and soaked with rain.
For the first time since October 2023, I have posted an average of two posts per day in a single month (31 days, 62 posts).
This is not exactly one of the great achievements of my life, but it does signal that I was finally able to get into the habit of posting more regularly again, and more specifically, not getting hung up on what to post, just posting whatever.
I believe I have achieved posting whatever.
Onto September!
But first, it’s time for you-know-who again. That’s right, typing cat!
I started about three different drawings, and they were getting too complex, so I started again with the idea of keeping it super simple. I drew a swoopy line and it turned into a purple onion thing. It took less than five minutes Ta-da!
Specifically on why it may be me, and not social media, though to be fair, Facebook is still a raging dumpster fire.
Facebook:
Anyway, as I opined to Nic today while talking about it, I think it really comes down to social media now just being a form of entertainment (and more nominally, for news and information) and I prefer to get my entertainment through other means, so a little social media goes a long way.
Or maybe I just suck at finding good people and things to follow.
Either way, cutting back on it will give me more time to draw. I’m going to draw something right now, then post it, right here! In the next post.
Where: Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam), Burnaby Lake (Burnaby) Weather: Sunny, 22-29°C
The Outing
Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake
Piper Spit in mid-morning. Squint to see a coot on the right-hand side.
Today was a briefer outing, and we started at Piper Spit, which was perhaps a slight tactical error, as the sun was low and to the east, which is the opposite of where you want it, as most of the waterfowl at the spit hang out on the east side.
We made do with the conditions and were rewarded with the return of another migrant, or perhaps “migrant” since it allegedly doesn’t migrate, yet always disappears locally every summer. In this case, a couple of Northern pintails have returned, joining the growing coot population. No other migrants were spotted, but the geese kept honking and carrying on, as if to suggest why can’t we just be happy with them, huh? Huh? HONK HONK HONK.
Goldfinches proved elusive to shoot again, though we spotted a rare warbling vireo, so that was spiffy. We also saw some chickadees, one of which was especially generous and posed for quite a bit.
There were also some dowitchers, but today they were gathered farther away from the pier, boo.
More wood duck dudes are showing full mullet now. Soon the entire lake will radiate with their iridescent beauty. Or something.
We did not stay overly long, but took note that it was already quite warm by mid-morning. It would get hotter still!
Tlahutum Regional Park
Coquitlam River looking very shallow at Tlahutum.
Next up was Tlahutum. We did our usual circuit to the big pond before stopping at the community garden before leaving. The big pond was a big bust–no birds! We did see what Nic thinks was a swallow of some sort flying very high above, the only one we saw. The rest are probably relaxing in Mexico now, or wherever it is they go. I know, I am typing this on the internet and could just look it up, but I am lazy love a mystery.
We did see a number of cedar waxwings, including one that hung out atop a tree for quite a long while, occasionally preening, panting or poofing itself out. The others were not quite as close, but a few had their kids in tow.
A heron flapped into one of the side creeks, and we got some decent shots of it standing there, looking stabby, but birds were generally few, possibly because by this time it was around 29C and felt even hotter due to the humidity. At this point we’d also had our fill of walking in the open sun, with no shade at all, and leaded off. We wore sunscreen this time, so no burning!
In all, not a bad outing, but this definitely feels like the “between” season, where some migrants are about to depart, some are coming in, but everything is in flux.
The Shots
Soon™
The Birds (and other critters). Rare or rarely-seen birds highlighted in bold.
Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:
American goldfinch
Barn swallow (probably)
Black-capped chickadee
Cedar waxwing
Downy woodpecker
Red-winged blackbird
Song sparrow (maybe?)
Spotted towhee
Warbling vireo
Waterfowl and shorebirds:
American coot (three!)
Canada goose
Great blue heron
Long-billed dowitcher
Mallard
Northern pintail (the return!)
Wood duck
Common:
American crow
Rock pigeon
Raptors:
None
Non-birds:
A fuzzy caterpillar that didn’t know how close it came to being smooshed by a bike
Technically, I am down from a month ago (July 31), when I was 166.9 pounds, but I am not down from the start of this month (August 1) when I was 166.6 pounds. Instead, my devilish weight came and went over the last 31 days before returning this morning.
For August, I dipped below 166.6 five times, the lowest being 166.1 pounds. But alas, I was mostly stalled out for the month.
Was it the crackers? It was probably the crackers.
But my body fat still decreased a little, which is good, and the overall trend is still down, even if it literally slowed to a standstill for August.
I keep saying it, but this time I really will have to cut down on the snacking, I am apparently doing more than I realize. No more tubs of lard! If I snack, it will be a few pods of sugar peas or a couple of strawberries or something. No chips, no crackers, no cookies.
We’ll see how that goes.
Stats:
January 1, 2024: 172.3 pounds Current: 166.6 pounds Year to date: Down 5.7 pounds
August 1: 166.6 pounds August 31: 166.6 pounds (unchanged)
Body fat: August 1: 25.1% August 31: 24.7 (down 0.4%)
Skeletal muscle mass: August 1: 29.7% August 31: 29.8% (up 0.1%)
As I’ve mentioned before, the only social media I really use anymore is Mastodon, but even there I’ve retreated mainly into the role of lurker, occasionally liking or boosting posts, and sometimes replying. I rarely create a post, and it’s mainly because I don’t really know anyone on Mastodon. On Facebook or Instagram, there are people I know–family or friends. I originally used FB like many people, to keep in touch with these people.
Toot be or not toot be
Facebook is a massive dumpster fire now, so while there are still lots of people there who I know IRL1I dislike the term “In Real Life” but can’t come up with anything better., I don’t care to keep in touch with them because I tend to keep my distance from dumpster fires.
Instagram was mainly where I posted bird photos, but I’ve pretty much stopped doing that and IG is a dumpster fire, too, it’s just a slightly smaller bin.
But as I pick and choose who or what to follow on Mastodon, I find myself asking more and more, what is it I’m looking for? Have I turned into a U2 song? Have I still not found it? Am I looking for something I will never find?
I think it’s possible, and the broader implication is that maybe social media is just not for me. Maybe it never was, and it only became obvious once I’d retreated from most, but not all, of it.
On Mastodon, I follow a few people ‘n things:
The hashtag #sketch
A few tech people (skewing to Apple, just because there’s so many of them)
The hashtag #linuxmint
A few political people or people who post about technology/politics
A few others I’ve discovered along the way, due to their photography, or just their writing on assorted topics
Generally, this gives me a decent mix of stuff that doesn’t get too bogged down in any one area. #sketch is lightly used, so there’s never too many posts to go through. Half of the ones for #linuxmint (and ther aren’t many) are in languages other than English, so I could probably drop that tag (I tried following #linux for a time, but it gets too much traffic, as one might expect on a nerd-centric platform like Mastodon). The others are a mixed bag.
Mastodon itself is fine. Some people are Very Serious or get easily offended. Some seem to easily offend others. It’s probably picked up some of the worst parts of Twitter, but has fewer tools for people to manage who can interact with them and their posts. Improvements are allegedly coming, but it’s been almost two years since the exodus from Twitter and now Bluesky, which is effectively a Twitter clone, but more “fun” is picking up users while Mastodon treads water. There seems to be a level of crankiness on Mastodon that I’m noticing more, probably related to the above-mentioned lack of tools, or related issues.
I don’t care about which site is more popular. Mastodon is big enough for me, but more often now, I find myself just scrolling through and feeling unsatisfied. There are jokes and cogent observations and talk about the Fediverse, and it’s all fine, but…unnecessary? I think the only thing I’d really miss are Chris Silverman’s bizarre and utterly fantastic Apple Notes sketches, and I can always check the notes.art site for those.
Then I think about the last time I lost myself in a sketch. It’s been a while. And I wonder if I’m just passing time scrolling and scrolling, and getting very little out of it. So maybe it’s not even Mastodon, it’s just me falling into a lazy habit and unwilling (so far) to escape out of it.
