Routine Revelations

Finished reading: See No Stranger by Valarie Kaur 📚

I led a group discussion of this book with friends from church. Christians know of Jesus commandment to love our neighbor and his teaching to love our enemies, but what does that really mean? Jesus is not taking about feelings or emotions but rather the work of revolution love that Valarie Kaur describes in this book.

Fitbit/Google has enabled the blood oxygen saturation reading of the Pixel Watch, but it only works at night! I don’t understand why Fitbit has not included an app to let users get a reading on-demand, like like we can do with ECG. I thought SpO2 is valuable info while working out, so I don’t understand why the reading is only at night. Consequently, I don’t benefit because I am not wearing my watch while I sleep.

I spend every work day in my home office that is located in the basement of our house, which can be 2 to 5 degrees cooler than the main floor, therefore I usually wear sweats rather than shorts. I also try to take four walks during the day, usually after each meal. When I walk I carry my phone and house key. I recently switched to the Pixel 7a that is heavier than the Pixel 4a I used previously, and I find it too heavy to carry comfortably in the pocket of my sweats. Consequently, I’ve started to carry the phone and keys in a sling pouch that I am wearing while on my walk but it is a tad larger than I prefer, so I have ordered a smaller phone sling from Alpaka that I hope will be better to wear on my walks.

After reading this article about RFK Jr. and his candidacy for President, it occurs to me that what should be most important is how a person works and interacts with those with whom they disagree. It seems most people believe that a President can and should be able to simply make changes and that would make that person a king against which we declared our independence. Consequently, any person in power is going to encounter oppositional power and how that person handles it is an important skill. So, RFK Jr. has some opinions about affects of vaccines on autism, which he is certainly allowed to have, but what will he do with them? How does he view those who disagree with his opinions, with contempt or as an opponent? Too many people treat others with contempt and that is counter productive.

It’s the first official day of summer, which means we are now at peak amount of daylight for the year. According to an app I have that is 15 hours and 18 minutes of daylight where I live in southeast Michigan. Sunset here is 9:15 PM. During my college years I lived in Houghton, Michigan during two summers. Houghton is also in the eastern time zone but if you look for it on a map you will find it north of Wisconsin and if you draw a straight line down from it you will end up at the middle of Wisconsin. Why that matters is that Wisconsin is in the central time zone. Sunset in Houghton is at 9:54 PM tonight, which means dusk extends well past 10 PM, making for much longer evenings with daylight than anywhere else I have ever lived.

Nice weather here at Pebble Creek

The blog post titled “How technology has changed the world since I was young” by Noah Smith lacks a very significant impact of the Internet on the world, which is our expectation of and thus perception on time. People who never lived in a time before the Internet have no concept of not knowing what is happening in the world in near real time. Such people have never lived in a time when it was not possible to buy something and have it delivered the next day… and in many cases that day! Consequently, such people expect change to happen much faster than those of us who lived before the Internet. I think the source of much tension in our society today is the battle between those who expect immediate change and those who are used to change taking years if not decades. Every battle over rights in the United States comes down to those demanding immediate change and those who either don’t want change or want to at least slow down change.

I am grateful for mornings like today, when the temperature is mild and there is a nice breeze with the birds chirping and fluttering about. I might sit here all day.

Yesterday I experienced something for the first time, a strong downpour of pea sized hail. I was in the basement and yet it sounded like the roof was caving in. I did not see any damage after other than a lot of leaves on the ground.

Is the Vision Pro an iPhone or a Newton?

In the butterfly exhibit of the Milwaukee Public Museum. Google says this is a Heliconius.

I am experimenting with and learning about the wide angle lense of my Google Pixel 7a. I like how this picture turned out.

Railhouse Brewery Outta The Blue

Vision Pro might be the ultimate test of the Apple cult. Could be a John Sculley / Apple Newton moment.

Apple mythology states they enter a market when they have a better take on it. In what way is Vision Pro a better take on prior AR / VR solutions? Definitely not with the hardware, looks like Apple is putting all their eggs in the software basket, which is interesting for a hardware company.

I was not expecting to be able to watch the Apple WWDC keynote, but Murphy has enabled me to do so and I am jotting notes during the session.

Is it me, or does some hotel cancellation policies feel like a scam? What I am seeing is to be able to cancel as late as 24 hours before some hotels are charging $50 or more a night. Some times it’s worse. I made a reservation at a hotel a few weeks back that only allows free cancellation up until a week before the check in date, no matter the price, and that just seems wrong. I wanted to pay less per night in comparison to other hotels, so I made the reservation with the sinking feeling Murphy would get me, and he did as I had to cancel today, which is check in day and that would have cost me the same cancellation fee if I cancelled two days ago.

I can’t help but feel that the “inflation news” has given all businesses liberty to find all sorts of ways to make more money