I’ve been spending some time doing research on the relative (perceived) performance of flagship Android phones compared to iPhones. I will probably not write the extended post I was planning to, as it seems that it’s hard to answer this question scientifically, and, perhaps more importantly, it makes people Very Very Angry. I would still like to leave you with some interesting reading material. Hence this quick note. From this discussion post (December 2016) by CodingHorror, aka Jeff Atwood, one of the two founders of the whole StackOverflow empire, where he measures the relative performance of his discourse web-app, the following choice quote:
Critical Thinking 101: Three super easy steps to spot poppycock on the internet.
Today it happened again. A Lie Can Travel Halfway Around the World While the Truth Is Putting On Its Shoes (quote not by Mark Twain, origin quite interesting) Someone on facebook forwarded an article that was full of badly written and utterly unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about topic X. (topic X could be anything: politics, health, whatever) To me, it was instantly clear that the article was 100%, undiluted, hogwash. Now you probably think that I must have decades of experience separating the internet wheat from the chaff.
Weekly Head Voices #115: So much Dutch.
Monday January 16 to Sunday January 29 of the year 2017 yielded the following possibly mention-worthy tidbits: On Saturday, January 21, we had the privilege of seeing Herman van Veen perform live at the Oude Libertas Theatre. The previous time was a magical night many years ago in the Royal Theatre Carré in Amsterdam. Herman van Veen is a living, extremely active and up to date legend. To most Dutch people you’ll ever meet he is a formidable part of their rich cultural landscape.
Samsung Gear Fit 2 voice guide at intervals not working at all: The Fix.
Update 2017-05-02: As reported by Kjetil in the comments, if you update the Health apps in the GEAR category of Galaxy Apps, this should fix the problem without having to change your phone’s language. I’m keeping the rest of the post here as a record of events. This is a really short note to help other people trying to get their broken Samsung Gear Fit 2 voice “guide at intervals” to work.
Weekly Head Voices #114: So you know what I did last summer.
WELL HELLO THERE FRIENDS FROM THE BLOGOSPHERE! It’s definitely time to get out a Weekly Head Voices, so that we can all feel nicely up to date. This post covers the period from Monday December 5, 2016 to Sunday January 15, 2017, which is ever so slightly *cough* later than average. My excuse is: SUMMER HOLIDAY. If you have not yet read my 2016 to 2017 transition post, this is a gentle reminder to make some time to do so.
Fixing the Samsung Gear Fit 2 GPS lock delay when running without phone
For the past few runs, I noticed that my Gear Fit 2 would only lock onto GPS after more than 0.5 km. By “noticed”, I of course mean “got super frustrated with and considered briefly throwing the gadget onto the ground and arranging for its utter disintegration through repeated jumping on it”. Besides losing the first 0.5 km of my run data, the pacing information, delivered via synthesised voice, would be wildly inaccurate for the rest of my run.
Deep Work: A welcome kick in the butt.
Based on this tweet by Enrico Bertini: Little project I developed during the break looking back at 2016: "Quantifying and Visualizing “Deep Work”" https://t.co/s3d9Zn685Q — Enrico Bertini (@FILWD) January 3, 2017 … after having been successfully primed by this one some weeks ago (because locals!): I also recommend https://t.co/pILlM1OZpf. I was skeptical, but it’s surprisingly good. — Rian van der Merwe (@RianVDM) December 22, 2016
The 2016 to 2017 transition post.
Following the rich tradition over here of year transition posts, having just rounded off a brilliant outdoorsy take-your-mind-off-of-everything vacation with friends, and also inspired by wogan.blog’s nicely personal 2016 review post, I decided that a farewell-2016 how-you-doin’-2017 post was in order. By the way, by rich tradition I mean that I wrote the grand total of one (1) similarly titled post previously, as the year ticked from 2009 to 2010, and at least one other, disguised as a weekly head voices, as we entered 2012.
Massive fires around here, thanks to firefighters my neighbourhood escaped!
Since yesterday (Tuesday January 3) multiple fires have been raging in my neck of the woods. Due to the superhero firefighters and their flying machines (multiple waterbombing helicopters and fixed wing planes), the fires surrounding my specific neighbourhood (Rome Glen, Somerset West) have been brought under control. It was quite scary yesterday when we could see trees going up in flames a few hundred metres away from our house. Late this morning there were still some flare-ups close by, but the helicopters were on the scene within minutes to waterbomb them out of existence.
Review: Awei A990-BL Wireless Sport Bluetooth Earphones – Avoid!
Due to my terrible running addiction, my recent acquisition of the Samsung Gear Fit 2 sports tracker watch, and the mechanical incompatibility of the Bluedio Ci3 earphones with my ears, I was again in the market for a new set of bluetooth earphones. (The earphones are not only to listen to MP3s on the watch, but more importantly, to hear the pacing information communicated by the watch’s terrible synthesised voice.)