atomicules

Mostly walking the dogs

Apple Watch Series 3 Five Years On

Five years on it’s still going pretty strong: It has a 90% battery capacity (although Apple are very generous with their percentages). I can, however, get up at 6-7am and either do a couple of runs (one for me and one with A) and have just enough battery to make it to bed time at 11pm ish, or I don’t do any GPS activity and I easily make it to bedtime with around half my battery left.

Since I don’t have an iPhone anymore I am literally just using it as a running/exercise watch as opposed to a smart watch (well, I do use timers for cooking - WorkOutDoors and the timer app are the two things I have in the “dock”) so that probably helps with battery life. In the day it’s connected to the house WiFi - I could turn that off I guess, but no real need.

I had thought that I’d need to replace it last year but I guess I might get another year out of it before the battery is completely knackered. Perhaps if I was doing longer runs I’d notice it, but it’s fine for what I’m doing currently. There are rare occasions where I’d like to have a watch that has days long battery life (so not even a new Apple Watch) for tracking runs and steps, but I don’t need it.

Some follow-ups since the initial review:

  • I’ve realised wrist based heart measurements are just what they are. They are very person dependent, etc. WorkOutDoors having Precision Start where it starts measuring heart rate before starting a run helps a bit. So I use it, but it’s hit and miss: sometimes records perfectly during runs, other times gets maybe a couple of readings.
  • I used Siri via my watch once to phone little M whilst out in some bad snow and there was no way I could have unlocked my phone. Worked a treat, but that was the only time.
  • I stopped using the Strava app for WorkOutDoors and use audio sparingly for sprint intervals. I e. I could completely cope without a speaker on a watch.
  • Display-wise, when running I just have average pace and time nowadays which really helps with readability.
  • I stopped using Teuxdeux (sadly), but could still use the Shortcuts app for Taskwarrior. I do miss this specific smart watch functionality, but can cope without it (obviously).

In general I really can’t fault it and I’ve loved it as a bit of technology. If you have an iPhone, getting a Watch SE is a far better value purchase than whatever iPhone you have. It is Apple’s best product in my opinion, especially when combined with WorkOutDoors for the mapping, etc.

I am not unaffected by consumerism - I’ve window shopped hard for a new watch over the last year from the most realistic option (a forerunner 55) to dream level stuff (like a Suunto Race S or Polar Vantage M3). I’d love to buy something, but know there is no real point yet. Anything in my price range isn’t really going to be better it will just have more battery life. It’s not going to make any difference to my exercise routine.

Note: (Ma: Torture those privileged white kids. The token black teen and token poor white mum didn't balance it out)

Note: Watched Ma because Netflix said I'd love it based on Ready Or Not. But 2/5. A bit teeny and mostly I was rooting for Ma.

Note: Watched Ready Or Not. 5/5. It knows what it wants to do (even if the viewer doesn't), sets out and pulls it all together by the end.

LINK: Drinkaware

I’m not doing dry January (why make an already hard month more miserable than necessary?) so this post is just coincidentally in January - I actually started using Drinkaware last year, but only got around to writing about it now.

These are my uncollected thoughts on it:

  • As far as doing what it says on the tin I can’t fault it: It does make you very aware.
  • It would be nice if it worked offline / without an account.
  • It would also be nice if it didn’t nag every time about enabling notifications.
  • And further, if you could edit existing entries (names, percentages, volumes, etc) rather than having to delete and replace.
  • The unit goals can only go down which I find a bit silly. Ok, yes, I am trying to stick to 14 units a week, but if I only have 10 units one week I can’t then set a goal of 14 for the next week.
  • Related: It’s not the most positively re-enforcing app. It tends to want to tell you you’ve “significantly increased your drinking” if you’ve gone from a week with 0 units to a week with 10 whereas I feel it should be saying “well done, you are under 14 units”.
  • 14 units a week is not a lot at all.
  • What’s more, 8 units in a session (any more is technically binge drinking and a session is a whole 24 hours) is really not much at all. That’s less than four pints at 4.5%. If you had two pints at lunch on a Saturday and then two in the evening you’d be a binge drinker (technically).
  • It’s really made me aware how strong drinks are. It’s hard to find craft beers under 4%. It’s easy to find beers over 5%. Similarly it’s so much easier to find wines at 13% than 10.5% (and it makes a lot of difference: You can do a whole bottle of wine at 10.5% and stay under 8 units).
  • I’ve found a new found appreciation for “bests”: Bellhaven Best and Caledonia Best are only 3.2%
  • Of course there are lots of great alcohol free beers nowadays, but I also wish there were more around 3%. Similarly with lower alcohol wines (alcohol free wines are… not good).
  • I could probably give up drinking for myself, but, like everything else in my life, I’m trying to stick to these guidelines as a compromise.
  • But I’m also doing “everything in moderation, including moderation” - I.e. I didn’t bother over Christmas (I did have a very light New Year though just by accident).

The Jazz Bar Edinburgh

The Jazz Bar Edinburgh

We’ve done quite a few visits to the Blue Lamp since, but yesterday we managed a brief stop off at Edinburgh’s The Jazz Bar. It is more like a movie jazz club and a very cool place indeed.

Christmas Book Haul

Christmas Book Haul

Genuinely so happy when I’d already unwrapped a load of books and then unwrapped Addie LaRue. Also really looking forward to Butter - that wasn’t on my list but looks great. Will take me awhile to get through these though. Quotes incoming.

LINK: My Music Picks Of The Year

Highlights of the highlights? Could I pick a top ten? I doubt it. Right now that Divorce track is stuck in my head, plus I’m loving the Honeyglaze Ghost song (which I overlooked when I first listened to the album as I was so distracted by the brilliance of Pretty Girls), but this playlist sways from Ariana Grande to Architects so it really depends on my mood. There is some great stuff on here.

The craziest thing though is, that despite there being almost six hours of tracks here, I know there will have been songs that I will love that have completely passed me by.

Looking forward to next year.

Strava Year In Sport

Strava Year In Sport

That makes it two years of this reduced running effort, but I have maintained a great streak, doing 75 mins of fast (for me) running (keeping it under an average of 5 mins/km) and then 75 mins of strength (split as 45 mins of actual strength exercises and 30 mins of yoga*). I’ve had maybe one week each year when I didn’t keep the streak owing to being on holiday, etc, but even then alternative exercise has taken over (like the two slower trail runs in Cassis this year).

I still do miss my long runs and I still think it’s a shame I’ve had to let that go since it took years to build up to doing those distances, but what I have now is a good compromise.

And this year I have managed:

  • Two Brimmond Hill runs (I used to think nothing of this distance, but it’s rare to get the opportunity now. Brimmond Hill is a great thing to run up)
  • Two “mini three peak” challenges (again making the most of what’s on my doorstep - I don’t get the point in not running up a hill if it’s there)
  • Two runs of the Calanques trail in Cassis (the best trail I’ve ever run)
  • Finally getting to run up Bennachie
  • And managed my fastest 5k. So close to getting sub-20 (20:15), which isn’t bad for my age.

Strength wise, I really don’t know if anyone else would notice (I am still a bit of a weedy stick), but I can see the difference. I guess if I really wanted to “bulk up” I’d have to do more than two strength workouts a week and do the whole protein thing and I can’t be arsed with that. I just wanted to do something. Could do with upping the weights though since I don’t have the time to up the reps.

Yoga wise. Oof, I’m just glad I can do it. I’m no where near as supple as the Nike instructors, but again, I think for my age I’m pretty good. Managed to get into the wheel on repeated occasions. That’ll do for me.

In general, I am fully aware I’m coasting, but I don’t mind. As I see it I’m in a holding pattern in case life changes again in the future and, if so, I can use this as a base to build up from. And if nothing changes then I’m still making the most of the time I have.

* - I do keep thinking about splitting the strength into equal 25 minute chunks and I might try this next year.

Taskwarrior 3 on NetBSD Notes

If I have time (“ha ha ha ha”; I’m also doing this all via ssh from my phone) I’d like to see about making a Pkgsrc WIP package for this (since it’s quite a change from v2 it makes more sense to stick it in WIP rather than just upgrade the existing Pkgsrc package). On that note, I wonder if it’ll have to be split out into taskchampion and taskwarrior for Pkgsrc? I.e. so the new Rust taskchampion bit is built first and then the C++ taskwarrior bit includes that?

In the meantime I just built outside of Pkgsrc:

  1. Needed a small patch to build:

     diff --git a/CMakeLists.txt b/CMakeLists.txt
     index 25ed4d9eb..a644268ac 100644
     --- a/CMakeLists.txt
     +++ b/CMakeLists.txt
     @@ -65,7 +65,11 @@ SET (TASK_RCDIR "${TASK_DOCDIR}/rc" CACHE STRING "Installation directory for con
      SET (TASK_BINDIR  bin            CACHE STRING "Installation directory for the binary")
         
      # rust libs require these
     -set (TASK_LIBRARIES dl pthread)
     +if (NETBSD)
     +  set (TASK_LIBRARIES pthread)
     +else ()
     +  set (TASK_LIBRARIES dl pthread)
     +endif ()
         
      check_function_exists (timegm  HAVE_TIMEGM)
      check_function_exists (get_current_dir_name HAVE_GET_CURRENT_DIR_NAME)
    
  2. Needed this exporting: CARGO_HTTP_CAINFO=/usr/pkg/share/mozilla-rootcerts/cacert.pem
  3. And then a cmake -S . -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_INSTALL_RPATH_USE_LINK_PATH:BOOL=ON . to keep libuuid linked for the install; I am wondering if libuuid is even needed on NetBSD, probably not, but that can be an exercise for another day.
  4. The rest of it is per the INSTALL instructions.

I also updated my patch from ten years ago to fix recurring tasks for DST for v3:

diff --git a/src/recur.cpp b/src/recur.cpp
index d6bb47454..b11480245 100644
--- a/src/recur.cpp
+++ b/src/recur.cpp
@@ -53,6 +53,8 @@
 
 // Add a `time_t` delta to a Datetime, checking for and returning nullopt on integer overflow.
 std::optional<Datetime> checked_add_datetime(Datetime& base, time_t delta) {
+  Datetime recurrence_date;
+
   // Datetime::operator+ takes an integer delta, so check that range
   if (static_cast<time_t>(std::numeric_limits<int>::max()) < delta) {
     return std::nullopt;
@@ -62,6 +64,14 @@ std::optional<Datetime> checked_add_datetime(Datetime& base, time_t delta) {
   if (std::numeric_limits<time_t>::max() - base.toEpoch() < delta) {
     return std::nullopt;
   }
+  // Shift current to midday, to be safe of any DST changes, before calculating future date
+  // Then set back to correct hour
+  // Only do this if delta is a whole number of days
+  if (delta % 86400 == 0) {
+    recurrence_date = (Datetime (base.year(), base.month(), base.day()) + 43200) + delta;
+    return Datetime (recurrence_date.year(), recurrence_date.month(), recurrence_date.day()) + 3600 * base.hour() + 60 * base.minute() + base.second();
+  }
   return base + delta;
 }

It seems there maybe future plans to use timezones in tasks which would finally solve this properly so I guess since my approach is still a little hacky it’s not worth PR’ing (the idea didn’t get any traction in the last ten years anyway).

Note: Bored already. :/

Note: Finished work for Christmas. Yay!

Spotify Wrapped

Spotify Wrapped

No surprise about the top artist and top three songs and as it should be considering I called it as my album of the year in March. I listed to it again (twice in a row) recently and wondered if I was still right, but it just cemented my opinion - it’s so beautifully layered. I love it.

Genuinely surprised by Real Estate’s Water Underground being at number four. I obviously like it and it is in my “Picks of 2024” playlist, but it doesn’t feel like I’ve played it that much. I do wonder if my top songs are actually pretty close? I started building that “Picks of 2024” list in January and Real Estate’s album was out in February so it has had a lot of opportunity to be played when I listen to that playlist on shuffle, but then there were tracks I added in Janurary - Bullion and Carly Rae Jepsen’s Rare at number 5 for instance. Anyway, I’ll be publishing that list at the end of the month.

Note: Well are... are you gonna sing a song or something? Or can I just go back to work?

November Noise

But a lot from October.

  • OneDa: Formula OneDa. I was hoping for an album full of Set It Off, but didn’t quite get it. That track remains my favourite.
  • Charli XCX: Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat. Mean Girls, which I over-looked on Brat, is heads and shoulders above everything else on here. It’s fantastic.
  • Confidence Man: 3AM (LA LA LA). I’d somehow missed the release of Control as a single, but that is great. It would be fantastic live or in a club.
  • Martha Hill: Football Heid. Not quite reaching the heights of Grilled Cheese for me. Lizard boy and Football are the ones I like best.
  • SPINN: Oh My God… I’m so alone. SPINN remain ridiculously underrated. I Would Call You (But I Never Know What To Say) and Shakshuka are indie bangers.
  • Amyl and the Sniffers: Cartoon Darkness. Chewing Gum is the one I like best. Big dreams is chilled but really good. It’s Mine is pure moshpit madness. U Should Not Be Doing That is probably second to Chewing Gum.
  • Laura Marling: Patterns in Repeat. Patterns is my clear favourite.
  • Two Shell: Two Shell. Gimme it is my favourite which was out earlier in the year.
  • Hinds: Viva Hinds. I listened to this when I wasn’t really in the mood for it, but I ended up enjoying it. Boom Boom Back is the obvious standout. And then maybe Stranger next.
  • Swim School: Seeing It Now. Another underrated band. Give Me A Reason Why remains awesome since it was released right at the start of the year and should be way more popular than it is.
  • Man/Women/Chainsaw: Easy Peasy. One of my favourite band names ever. A bunch of too-cool-for-school youngsters. The Boss could quite easily end up being iconic.
  • Housewife: Divorce. An EP, but superb. I Lied had already made it to my Picks of 2024, but I’m probably going to add Life Of The Party too. And maybe the whole EP? There is nothing rubbish on here.
  • Fcukers: Baggy $$. Another EP. I’d heard the Confidence Man remix of Bon Bon, but the original is actually really good. That, Homie Don’t Shake and UMPA are the best.

The Shovel Was Almost As Tall As She Was

"The shovel was almost as tall as she was. A few days shy of her thirteenth birthday, and even for twelve and eleven twelfths, Sydney Clarke was small. She had always been on the short side, but it certainly didn't help that she had barely grown an inch since the day she'd died."

Vicious by V.E. Schwab

I’ve got The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue on my reading list, but they had this in the library so I thought I’d read it instead. It’s great! Sucks you right in. Will have to read more than just this and The Invisible Life now.

These are the ten most recent posts (not counting any note drivel), for older posts see the Archive.