Headworx

Air pollution is widely known as a big environmental problem. There are code requirements, monitoring stations, and news services report the ppm values raising alerts when the norms are exceeded. Noise pollution does not get this level of attention. We're somehow used to it. Probably because it is everywhere and one needs to be really lucky to be able to escape it. Cars (in general), and combustion engines (in particular) have been responsible for most of this. And this is not just driving. I remember not long ago spending a night on a beautiful campsite - that night was really ruined by power generators used by a number of RVs... This should really be prohibited - a very comfortable camping van can be supported by solar panels only. I've become even more sensitive to the acoustic noise problem since (as a result of the pandemic lockdown) I moved to the woods, living in a small cottage. The silence here is amazingly rewarding. But being spoiled by these unique conditions I find...

The audiobooks on the run saga was about me trying to use my smart watch (the Garmin fēnix series) as a Bluetooth audiobook player, to eliminate the need to carry a phone on trail runs. Long story short it did not work as advertised and after the long exchange with Garmin support they replaced my unit, which solved the problem. Until the problem returned. So the problem itself was the Garmin watch could not multitask. It could play audio, or it could record an activity (such as a Walk or Run), but not both. This seemed to me like a resource problem (such as insufficient memory to run both tasks), but Garmin insisted they had never had such issue and therefore the hardware unit must have had been faulty and they replaced it. This resolution was not convincing to me at all , but I could not dispute the facts. The new unit was able to play audio while recording an activity. I must have had accepted this fact, agreed with Garmin and put my "insufficient resources" theory to rest...

The irony is that people who care about (backing up) their data tend to lose it... Most just don't care and this approach is good enough. After all Google Photos, iCloud and similar services will take care of device backups automatically. And so will any of the messaging or social sharing sites. I do know some people who rely entirely on WhatsApp as their backup for photos and other stuff. That just works, as long as you do not have any special needs (such as storing certain file types or making sure the photos are not down-sampled). Then there is a group of those who care a bit more. They purchase premium tiers of the cloud services, enabling them to store full resolution photos and other files by either manual uploads or automatic mirroring. And then there is the very paranoid group who do not trust the cloud services. They take the most effort of setting up and maintaining local backup devices - most typically in form of NAS (Network Attached Storage) devices. All in faith of be...

The world is obsessed with improving user experience of interaction with tools, machines and services. This is of course driven by the economy (the smart elite) manipulating the crowds (too lazy to thing or make effort). Designers cry rivers over badly designed microwave dials . Hey, is this really a problem? Except that this model will not sell as good as the ones which have more intuitive design? I would not mind having one like that in my kitchen. A little bit of daily brain exercise would help us maintain the primate status... The brain needs exercise as much as the rest of the body (or perhaps even more) to stay fit. Bad UX helps :) But of course other than consumer appliances, there are areas where good UX is important. Like safety critical systems. I remember my first paraglide flight, with an instructor and using a winch. During the pre-flight briefing he explained to me the two safety releases: you pull the one on the left to release the winch rope and you pull the right one t...