Headworx

When I was writing the 10 Thousand Kilometers blog, I realized I could do better. But the daily 75-minute trail run was already putting pressure on my typically busy workday. I am fortunate though to have plenty of choices in my neighborhood, when it comes to hiking / running trails. This is the undisputed benefit of living in the woods. There is a rocky hill nearby and I was passing by its bottom every day. So how about including this hill run in the daily routine? It turned out to be a great choice, as it added only 12-13 minutes to the schedule, while essentially doubling the altitude gain. And adding a good effort to be made. Probably the most bang for the buck.  But there was a risk I would get lazy after a couple of days, returning to the old route. But now after two months I am happy I have been doing this every day. Except when traveling. But also when traveling I am no longer happy with anything than 10km - be it Vancouver, Burlingame or Tokyo. Only when traveling, I brin...

My Blackberry is ageing. It still works many days on a single charge but barely copes with the new software. Apps are slow and some even fail to run. But the biggest issue is the camera which has gathered a lot of duct on the internal lens surfaces, so photos come out washed out and often not sharply focused. I've been waiting to "pull the trigger" and buy the new Samsung Galaxy S23 but after a careful examination of pros and cones I passed on it. To be honest passed on Android as such. In a surprising move I have become an iOS guy. Not yet, as Apple must first release a USB-C iPhone. But that is definitely in the works, so it is all very probable I will be buying the iPhone 15 when it comes out. I did a list of features I wanted from a new phone and surprisingly there have been several points where Android lost to iOS. And even more surprisingly many of them have been around handling photos. This is surprising as Google Photos is definitely the leading personal photos a...

Organizations see chat as a very efficient support channel mainly because it can be automated. Yes, even before ChatGPT, chat bots had ben in a full swing. Sadly these automated chat actions have often been failing miserably . On the other hand a chat with a real person has proven (from my own experience) to be super effective. There is probably no worse support experience than hanging on a voice call in a waiting queue, listening to an elevator music of super poor quality. To be honest phone calls today are clearly the thing of a past, mostly due to the voice quality. We have moved to Internet - based teleconferencing and when someone dials in with a phone, they sound like dinosaurs. On top of that the new generation does not simply want to talk over phones. Text is the new king. Email support has been available for much longer time, but it too has many drawbacks. With chat you have instant confirmation that someone is reading, responding and generally acting upon your request. Email ...

Satellite communication has been one of the most interesting developments in the smartphone space recently. Apple was first with the iPhone 14 announcement of support for emergency satellite-based messaging . It uses the Globalstar system and covers North America. Not long after Apple's launch, Android fired back with Qualcomm's announcement of satellite communication support in the Snapdragon family . This is based on the Iridium constellation and also handled by Garmin on the "receiving" end. Both are great developments and something somehow unexpected, as satellite terminals were always associated with bulky antennas. Now in both Apple's and Qualcomm's solutions, the bulky antennas are gone. The disappearing antennas probably have consequences of having to point phones precisely to the open clear sky to make a connection. But still, these developments are remarkable. Now the interesting angle is whether anyone relying on emergency satellite connection would...