A shot of the Logitech G703, my current and now slightly malfunctioning mouse.
It seems that the switches on my trusty Logitech G703 mouse are finally starting to go, particularly those under the left button, as it is starting to register double-clicks, no clicks or some random combination of the two.
I can’t remember when I got the mouse, so I suppose I’m not too upset, but, unlike days of yore, I’m not looking forward to looking for and getting a new mouse, I’d rather one that worked just magically appeared on my desk.
Sine that seems unlikely to happen, what I may do instead is switch to one of my backup mice (yes, I have multiples) and use one of those in the interim and begin a search for a new mouse. I could also swap out the G703 with the G403 currently on the Mac (they are the same mouse, the G403 is the wired version). That would likely mean using a wireless mouse on my Mac, which would be bad because they kind of suck (unless you use Apple’s mouse).
I checked Logitech Canada’s site and the G703 is still available…for $129.99. I must have bought mine on sale or in an alternate dimension because I know I didn’t pay anywhere near that for it (nor would I ever pay that much for a mouse).
In service to our great AR/VR future, Samuel Axon tested the Apple Vision Pro outdoors and in public settings. My favourite part may be that he opened the Music app and placed the window in a neighbour’s yard, then had to leave it there, because you can’t easily take windows around with you (to be fair, this is not something you should normally expect to do with the Apple headset)1.
And yes, technically, you could argue this is not a review. But you could also have a chocolate chip cookie instead, and you would enjoy that more. ↩︎
I missed Monday’s run because I spent most of the day working on time-sensitive stuff. This meant I had four days off between runs, and the casual observer might think, “That means you should be well-rested and do great!” But what it really means is it puts me right on the edge where my fitness level starts to dip just a bit because I’ve taken too long between workouts. That’s right, your body punishes you for getting too much rest by making your next workout feel harder! This is why people give up on New Year resolutions.
But I was undeterred. It was milder than Friday, the sun was out again, and again due to time, I opted for a run on the river trail. I hit a complication even before I started. One of the last things I do before a run is check the temperature and humidity. When I went to do this, my iPhone 12 reported no cell connection. I have no idea why. Power-cycling the phone1Really, any time you have a tech problem, always try turning it off and back on first. It’s a meme, but it also fixes a surprising number of issues! fixed the issue, and I was off.
I had opted to wear two layers because it was 5C when I headed out and this ended up being a good call, because, as a change of pace, it was windy and in mid-February, the wind is still pretty cold! The humidity was also much lower than normal, around 40% or so. This had no real effect, other than my lips being very slightly drier than normal.
There were two minor issues on this run:
At one point, I threatened to develop a stitch. It resolved itself in a few seconds, though. (Stitches usually mean I’m running too fast.)
At another point, I felt a bit of a kink in my right knee. This seems unrelated to my knee issues last year, I think it was just an artifact from stretching or something. It was very intermittent and didn’t affect my pace.
Overall, this was a pretty good run. I had a good pace, solid BPM and no dogs off leash!
Brunette River, post-run.
Run 851
Average pace: 5:44/km
Training status: Maintaining
Location: Brunette River Trail
Start: 11:09 a.m.
Distance: 5:03 km
Time: 28:52
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 7-8ºC
Humidity: 43-40%
Wind: moderate
BPM: 152
Weight: 171.6
Total distance to date: 6145 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: HOKA Speedgoat 5 (280/517/797 km)
A wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition.
This definition is kind of depressing! But it captures the main things I’m interested in when it comes to nostalgia:
yearning
sentimentality
wistfulness
When I get nostalgic, it’s usually because I’m thinking about something pleasant from my past, and not recent past, but a time long enough ago that it feels good and gone now. An irrecoverable condition, one might say.
However, if I start chipping away at a particular bit of nostalgia, the imperfections of the past reveal themselves. I see the things that were less than ideal, the stuff we’d think of as archaic or even unacceptable today.
But are there things that really were better back in my youth, which was primarily in the 1970s and 1980s? When I came up with the premise of this post, I didn’t have an answer, I wanted to start writing and see if something obvious came to mind.
Nothing has so far. I remember the overall feel of my childhood, which was relatively safe, pleasant and uneventful. I have oodles of good memories, and the bad ones–and there are bad ones–have been blunted by time, and most of them were not that bad to begin with. Fights (verbal, never physical) with friends over stupid things. Having a crush and being thus crushed. Sometimes they were more tactile: finding out what happens when you ride a bike with no feet and hands (you crash).
But what about something specific, something where I can say, “This [thing] in 1975 was way better than today, in 2024”? Also, good lord, that’s almost 50 years. I feel a little better knowing I still hadn’t hit puberty in 1975, at least.
The more I think about it, the more I come to realize it wasn’t something that existed back in the 70s or 80s that was better than today, it’s the opposite–the absence of something. And the most obvious one that comes to mind is social media.
I appreciate the irony of writing that on a blog.
There are lots of great aspects to social media, but its ills form a long and well-known list. For the moment, leave aside the potentially addictive nature, the negative effects on culture and specific peoples, the things we all know are bad about social media.
When I cast my mind back to 10-year-old me in 1975, what did I do during my free time after school or on the weekends? I’d hang out with friends, playing board games, or the very first video games (yes, including Pong), riding bikes, play-acting (usually based on some current TV series or movie). I’d draw comics or write stories, or listen to music. Sometimes I’d just read a book or magazine. And it’s when I think of that last category–reading–that makes me appreciate the difference between the world back then and now. News came in slower. I learned about contemporary issues and ideas through magazines. There was TV, too, but even that was restricted to a handful of channels.
And books! I would spend hours just quietly reading, lost in imaginary worlds, or being enthralled by breathless “non-fiction” covering the nonsense I loved as a kid–monsters, ghosts, UFOs, Bigfoot1I’ll grant that not everyone will see these things as nonsense. Heck, even I’m still not sure what’s up with UFOs.. And the thing about reading was the sense of quiet. The world moved, but the pace felt deliberate (also allowing for the difference in how time is perceived when you’re a kid).
That quiet simply doesn’t exist in 2024, unless you make a concerted effort to isolate yourself or head to a place where you can be reasonably confident you will be left alone, just you, your thoughts and a smartphone that can’t get reception.
So that sense of quiet, that’s something that was better in the olden times. I’m not sure how well I’ve explained it. I may revisit this post later. I’ll make a note2Seriously, I’m adding it to my reminders app. In olden times, this would have gone on a slip of paper that I would inevitably lose..
*Technically not Scrivener, but a new writing app from Literature & Latte, the company behind Scrivener. This is kind of old news, because the post I’m quoting from is from October 25, 2023, but I only found out about this yesterday.
Not Scrivener then: something new. But not entirely new. I’d long been toying with the idea of an alternative, more minimal take on Scrivener. This was a chance to create an app pared back to hone in on the principles on which Scrivener was originally built:
Work on a long text by splitting it into smaller sections.
Use an integrated outline for an overview and easy restructuring.
View research alongside writing.
Export or print with the option of changing the document’s appearance.
Description of the new writing app
Unfortunately, it sounds like syncing will once again be tied to only a single service–iCloud–which is only marginally better than Scrivener using Dropbox, and not exactly a logical choice for the planned Windows version.
Still, it holds the promise of offering a lot of what I like in Ulysses (simple, text-focused, but allowing for organization), but in a cross-platform format and (hopefully) without a subscription attached. Ulysses is a good program, but I feel it’s gotten a bit directionless lately, adding somewhat dubious features to justify its sub. And it’s Mac (and iOS) only, which is not optimal for me, since I spend most of my time working in Windows.
I am cautiously hopeful about Scribbler1Not the actual name, probably. It’s allegedly coming out this year, which may seem improbable given previous release date projections, but they claim it’s been in the works for three years, and it is a simpler program, so…maybe!
I am mildly fascinated1Can one be mildly fascinated by something? I say yes. by how often when I go out birding or for a walk along a trail, I will find a random piece of clothing–a cap, or a glove (almost always just a single glove), a shoe (yes, usually a single shoe, too), sometimes a jacket and occasionally, a pair of pants, any of these, stuck to a branch, or laying on the ground. And I wonder, how did these things get left behind?
With some clothing, I can imagine various scenarios. For example, you might take off a glove to do something a glove interferes with, like using a smartphone, so you take it off, set it down, then wander off while still using the phone. By the time you remember the glove, you’ve travelled far enough to ask yourself, “Is it worth going back for?” and decide no, it isn’t. And so the glove stays in its new home, until it gets absconded by a crow or returns to the earth (in 500 years or something).
I am less certain about how pants get abandoned.
But here is a photo of a glove left on the railing of the 1001 Steps staircase in south Surrey, taken on February 10th. I converted it to black and white to artsy it up.
I have been thinking about this. When I apply it to myself, I think of things like:
Weighing in at 187.5 pounds and resolving to lose weight by changing what I eat. I lost over 40 pounds over the following six months (this particular one is a war, not a battle, and it goes on forever).
Deciding (well, being told) I need exercise, so I started running in 2009. I have now tracked over 6,140 km of running.
I pretty much gave up on drawing something like 20 years ago, then started again and now have hundreds of sketches, comics, doodlings and art to show for it.
I didn’t want to stay single, so I started dating again. I’m now 14 years into a relationship.
I could go on, but you get the idea–these are all self-improvement type things. I did change by getting slimmer, healthier, and all that. But as an actual person, the stuff that makes me me, have I changed? Like, if I was always horribly mean to, I don’t know, boll weevils1I am not, nor have I ever been, horribly mean to boll weevils, am I still horribly mean to them today? If I was, could I change that?
It’s one thing to say, “I will no longer consider donuts a food group”, it’s another to vow to be kinder, nicer, or even just mellower. I could achieve some of this more ephemeral stuff through certain techniques–yoga and meditation come to mind–but even those would require a change first. Meditation requires you to be still, to quiet your mind. My mind doesn’t like being quiet. It blares all the time. My brain has opinions on everything that passes through it and shares all of them with me all the time. But if I really dedicated myself, could I break through the noise and find the quiet? And if I did, would there be add-on effects? Would I become more focused? Would I feel calmer? Appear more thoughtful? Stop asking so many questions?
I don’t know.
But I do know that I want to try.
Take this post from February 4th, An airplane up in the sky. It seems innocuous. It’s exactly what it says on the tin–a photo of a plane I took flying overhead. What you don’t know is that the original version of this post was completely different–a short, snarky comment about how we didn’t have enough reports on Apple’s Vision Pro headset2For those reading in the far future, the Vision Pro had just been released and was getting a lot of coverage. I included the modified Apple press image I made (which, to be honest, still amuses me). I hit the ol’ Publish button in WordPress and sent it out to the world.
Then I thought, “What does this bit of snark bring to the world? Is it especially clever or cutting? Will it make people laugh? Will it make people roll their eyes? What would someone do to a boll weevil after reading this?” And I decided it was just a piece of negativity that added nothing and had no reason to be. I could have deleted the post, but felt it would be better, or more fitting, to take a recycling approach to it, and keep it, but change the title, the content and the image. So, everything. And I felt better when the plane went up in its place.
I want to be the person who posts planes before snark. Can I be that person?
I’ll try.
Efforts on this will be documented here later as either inspirational pieces or object lessons in what not to do.
Today, the Super Bowl took place. Two teams played, one team one, etc. I don’t have all the details, I didn’t watch the game. I’m not really into sports ball.
What I do have is this AI art of an eldritch Super Bowl. Enjoy!
Where: Crescent Beach, Serpentine Fen, 1001 Steps (Surrey), Sapperton Landing (New Westminster)
Weather: Cloudy, 8°C
The Outing
It was a gray, cloudy day, with generally mediocre light, but on the plus side, my camera behaved again1Except when it came to one robin. See below for the blurry details., and it didn’t rain until after we had wrapped up.
We ventured to south Surrey and 1001 Steps, on the promise of spotting Harlequin ducks and lo, they were there! They were not close to the shore (none of the waterfowl were, a recurring theme for most of the day), but we got shots that say, “This is a Harlequin duck!” (Nic fared better–this is where 400mm vs 250mm can make a real difference).
The 1001 Steps that winds down to the rocky beach is more like 250 or so, but it’s still a notable number when you’re climbing back up. This is where all that jogging finally paid off. The beach is quite rocky, so we had to step carefully, but the view was very pretty, even with the cloud cover, and there were many birds swimming off the shoreline. We saw some species I don’t see often, too, like surf scoters and grebes, so despite the so-so light and distance, it was spiffy to check out a new area and see a new bird in the bargain. After climbing back up the stairs, we walked a few blocks to Kwomais Point Park. Here, there were a lot of songbirds, including bushtits (hehe) and a brown creeper, but most were not nearby. There was one extremely chill robin and I took a bunch of photos, but my camera was more interested in the grass directly behind the robin for reasons. I vow to shoot in manual mode the next time I see a robin sitting still like that. I will learn how to do this, just like a real guy-with-a-camera.
We actually started the day at Crescent Beach and Blackie Spit. There were lots of mallards, pintails and wigeons, but cormorants were absent, songbirds were not very prevalent, but we did see some greater yellowlegs, including two that had a bit of drama along the shoreline. Something felt off about the area today, though, whether it was the weather, the mix of birds or maybe just the time of year.
After 1001 Steps, we moved on to Serpentine Fen and got all crazy, walking the trail in reverse. I don’t mean walking backward, which would have been awkward, but possibly entertaining for others, we simply walked the route opposite the way we normally do. Sometimes you see views or things you didn’t notice before.
What we did see were lots of goldeneyes, wigeons, more mallards and several brooding herons. A few songbirds showed themselves here and there, but perhaps the biggest congregation consisted of several giant flocks of starlings atop some tall trees and power pylons. For some reason, this place had a lot more people than I would have expected for such a dreary day. But maybe people go somewhere else on nicer days? Maybe nothing new is on Netflix?
We wrapped up with an impromptu stop at Sapperton Landing, because I was hoping to see some birds near the river’s edge. And we did see some goldeneyes and a few others, along with some sparrows and a crow that took off at the precise moment I took its photo. It was a fitting end to what was a day of not-great shots. For the most part, it was the conditions and not my own ineptitude, or camera problems, but I think, after three years with my camera, I am ready to step up and start learning more control over the hardware, so I can better blame myself when a shot doesn’t turn out, just like nature intended.
The Shots Soon™
The Birds (and other critters)
Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:
American bushtit
Anna’s hummingbird
Black-capped chickadee
Dark-eyed junco
Golden-crowned sparrow
Red-winged blackbird (heard)
Song sparrow
Spotted towhee (heard)
White-crowned sparrow
Waterfowl:
American coot
American wigeon
Belted kingfisher
Bufflehead duck
Canada goose
Common goldeneye
Common merganser
Cormorant
Dunlin (?)
Great blue heron
Greater yellowlegs
Green-winged teal
Harlequin duck
Horned grebe
Mallard
Northern pintail
Scaup
Surf scoter
Common:
Crows
Seagulls
Raptors:
Bald eagle
Non-birds:
A rabbit at Serpentine Fen with a weird-looking puffy cheek
