Archive - May 20, 2020

# The friend who had a heart attack and operation last week had another episode on Monday and went back to hospital. Because of his condition he was given a test for coronavirus, and has been confirmed as positive.

It doesn't rain...

Fortunately, so far, he is asymptomatic so we hope he stays that way and can just concentrate on recovering from the heart problems without the added complications the virus would bring.

That underused space on my wrist

It's funny how opinions change over time like from considering myself stuck with Android using the Mate 20 Pro (when I was unable to upgrade to an iPhone 11 Pro) to embracing it and then buying the Samsung.

I don't miss an iPhone per se, maybe just some of the software design aesthetics compared to Android's Material design language.

What I do miss, however, is the Apple Watch or, at least, wearing a competent smartwatch. Again, this required a change of opinion as I had fallen out of love with it whilst ill and needed a shift in approach before I got to grips with it once more, including changing the watch face. As soon as the Watch was part of my daily routine again I found it became almost indispensable, it was just a shame it was a Series 0 (the original model) so stopped receiving Watch OS updates and was getting a bit slow. These issues helped me rationlise giving it up 2½ years ago, plus the fact that it was borrowed from work - not that there was an issue with me continuing to use it.

In the interim I've tried some cheaper bands and watches running their own proprietary operating systems but they were too limited, too unwieldy or clunky.

And now...

After getting the Samsung phone I began considering my options including whether a Galaxy Watch might be a good option considering the tight tie-in with the Galaxy phone. Samsung's offering does look like a viable solution but, for my own purposes, the limitations on specific third party apps (read Google) meant that it was a non-starter.

I had heard mixed noises about Wear OS devices including complaints about performance and battery life. The latter appears to be primarily down to Qualcomm's chipsets and the former a combination of this and manufacturers providing inadequate specs. There's not much you can do about the chipset apart from ensuring you choose a watch using the latest (sadly some manufacturers are still refusing to include this on new watches) but upping the amount of RAM onboard and providing additional battery mode customisations seem to be making a difference.

Being an older model I was used to charging the Apple Watch each day so doing this doesn't bother me although I may arrange a charging routine that allows me to use it overnight for sleep monitoring.

The Fossil Group, which includes brands like Skagen and Misfit, seems to be leading the way here so that's where I started looking.

Initially, I was looking at the Fossil Gen 5 Carlyle as its traditional, sleek looks appealed to me. All reviews seemed to be very favourable except one that mentioned a slight lip/gap between the screen and surrounding bezel which can become a dust trap - videos of this didn't look good. Off-putting.

With the Fossil Group being an umbrella for other smartwatch brands, and the internals of the Gen 5 acting as a base for other models, I knew I had other options.

I've been trying to reduce my impulsiveness (with varying degrees of success) so, after some research and deliberation, I've chosen the Skagen Falster 3 - essentially the same as the Gen 5 insides but housed in an even sleeker, more minimal case. Very stylish.

I'm not that concerned with fitness monitoring beyond steps and heart rate, and will be using it more for notifications, Google Assistant, Maps and Google Pay. I will also be looking for apps like meditation timers so that I can manage this directly from the watch.

It should arrive some time in the next 3-5 days (hopefully nearer the startof that window) and I cant wait to get started with it.

Comments

"When I read a blog, I want to get sucked down a rabbit hole. I want to dig deeper and deeper into someone’s thoughts and ideas about stuff they’re passionate about and how it can inform my direction too. I want to click on links, both on their own blog and elsewhere on the web, and I want this trail of thought to open up my mind in the same way that the internet first did for so many of us 25 years ago. And I want them to churn out more and more articles so I can come back day after day to get regular doses of the same insight that they first inspired me with."

Those are the words of Chris Foley over at Foley Music and Arts who lists 20 blogs he reads in 2020.

I can completely identify with the sentiment in that statement. It's why I read blogs, it's why I blog. I love to get behind the words, get an idea of the person behind the screen and someone's blog can be the most effective way of doing that.

With that being said, I am humbled and flattered that Chris has included me among that number alongside some familiar names and others I have yet to discover - I will be taking the time to dig through those I am not yet acquainted with.

Thanks Chris, I'll try to make it worth the visits.

Comments

cdevroe says:

@colinwalker same…

"Now that we’re in the… — Bix Dot Blog says:

“Now that we’re in the midst of a world-wide pandemic, there’s a new urgency,” blogs Chris Foley about blogs (via Colin Walker). “We need a way forward […] from people […] who can show us what survival and growth might look like […].” Or, you can just read me having a existential breakdown in slow motion but in real time.

Colin Walker says:

Om Malik linked to a post by TTTThis called "If I could bring one thing back to the internet it would be blogs". From my perspective what the post actually highlights is not issues with blogs themselves but with discovery and platforms. There are absolutely blogs out there, lots of them, doing their own thing, not terribly visible, not being SEO'd and hunting for traffic, just labours of love, someone spending time with their thoughts and publishing them on the web. It's true, it's hard to find a lot of them - even if you know where to look - because people don't always advertise them in any meaningful way, don't link to them, maybe don't even talk about them on their social channels (if they use social channels at all). They just write and that's it, that's enough for them, that's all they need, they don't even really care if anyone sees it. But some people like to read, like to immerse themselves in these visions from other worlds, other lives, other minds. Following on from Chris' comments yesterday, the author describe blogs as:

"...something you can sit down and read and get really into to the point you forget where you even are, and think about how you want to try those things maybe in your life, or just enjoy their writing, and you can read deeper into them into past blog posts, and tune back in later and see what they've posted since the last things you read about them."

Instead of big names or corporate blogs SEO'd to within an inch of their lives "what you really want is 10,000 unsuccessful blogs", the lives and thoughts of real, normal people writing about what they love and enjoy. Still, there is often a disconnect between the blog and the reader but is it something that always needs to be fixed? Probably not. How do you fix it even if the answer is yes? It seems that you can, at least in part, rely on interaction. The comments of the above post include a reference to #100DaysToOffload - an idea by Kev Quirk to "challenge people to publish 100 posts on their personal blog in a year."

"Posts don’t need to be long-form, deep, meaningful, or even that well written. If there are spelling and grammar mistakes, or even if there’s no real point to the post, so what? What’s important is that you’re writing about the things you want to write about."

There's even a blogroll, RSS feed, and a river of posts to make it easy for us.

20/05/2020

That underused space on my wrist

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