What is there to see in the lake is a question that people have frequently asked me. For at least two years I would go diving nearly every weekend. I would dive in the Lac Léman, the Lac de Bourget, the Gouille Du Duzillet. I also dived the English channel in November. I dived all year round. In summer we would cook in our dry suits and in winter our hands were sometimes so cold that we couldn’t take off our dry suits. Lake divers are an eccentric, hardy bunch of people. I used to say that the beauty of lake diving is that it is not affected by weather. You’ll get wet anyway and if you go below a certain depth water is always at 5°c. I’m in Spain at the moment and I decided to go snorkelling with my semi Dry Suit around El Portet. This is the cove where I worked on getting my rescue diver certification. I snorkelled by the rocks to the west at first. The waters are shallow and I did see a school of juvenile fish. As I finned further I saw some slightly larger fish and urchins. After a while of searching I finned to the other side of the bay. New sand has been deposited along this beach. As a result of this new sand visibility has suffered near the beach. By the rocks the visibility is still good. From the image above you can see that the water is really clear. I thought that with such clear waters I would see a lot. I was hoping to see fish, maybe an eel or two and maybe some crabs. It’s good to dive and snorkel close to marine reserves. In marine reserves fish are allowed to mature and grow and eventually they branch out to other areas. As a result diving and snorkeling are more rewarding. It’s at the supermarket fish section that I saw the most fish. It’s a shame that they were lying dead, on ice, rather than swimming underwater. In effect I see as many fish in the mediterranean as in the lakes of Switzerland and France so you travel for the climate rather than aquatic life. People need to allow the seas and oceans time to recover. It’s a shame not to see much aquatic life. I should try again in a different location where there are fewer people. I might be luckier....
Posts tagged “environmental”
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What is There to See in the Lake — Apr 13, 2017 -
Watching clouds form as a 360 timelapse — Jun 22, 2016Time-lapse videos are fun because we can see something happen faster or slower than real time. By watching this content we gain a better understanding of the world and how it works. For years I have been filming time-lapses and the results can be fun. In some cases we record time-lapses with video cameras and at other times we set an interval timer to take pictures every so many seconds. In this post you will be watching clouds form as a 360 timelapse. I have chosen to share both the flat image and the spherical image. The reason for sharing both versions is to give you an overview of how objects move in both....
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Walking from Village to Village, and Village to Town — Jun 22, 2020The conversation is too often about designing cities to be car-free, but I would argue that designing the countryside to require less frequently would be more advantageous. The reason for this is that walking from village to village, and from villages to towns eliminates the need for, and appeal of the car. If the need for a car is mooted by making the sides of roads pleasant for pedestrians and cyclists, we reduce the allure of the car.... -
Thoughts On The Vapour Glove Six — May 5, 2023I walk around in socks when I’m at home, so not quite barefoot, but almost. The idea of barefoot shoes is to get the human body, and especially the lower half to get back in touch with walking barefoot.... -
The Pandemic Of Sisyphus — Jul 13, 2021We are in a pandemic where the only disease vector is proximity to others, so in theory this is one of the easiest pandemics to overcome, and end. In practice people are like cats, and getting them to self-isolate is like herding cats. Paradoxically if people were as hard to herd as cats, then the pandemic would have ended over a year ago and today we’d be doing something more fun.... -
The Léman Rose by Seven Centimetres Overnight — Jul 17, 2021With the weather system that we have had over Europe a lot of rain has fallen. So much rain has fallen that it has swollen rivers and flooded plenty of regions. In Switzerland, because almost everything is on a hill flooding might be noticed in some parts of certain cities, but in theory it is easy, within meters, to be safe from the flood.... -
The Illusion That The Pandemic Is Over — Jan 26, 2023Switzerland is living under the illusion that the pandemic is over. If you look at the data on the RTS website and other sources of information such as Cotrack - Grafana then the pandemic is over. The number of new cases has gone done so if you look at the metrics then it is over.... -
The Extended Bike Ride — Apr 17, 2023My usual loop is around 30 kilometres but for the last two bike rides I have extended them, to reach 50-60 kilometres respectively. I cover this distance in about two, to two and a half, hours. Cycling is good at the moment because plenty of people are on holidays so the roads feel safer as there are fewer commuters on the roads....
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The Curse of The Electric Light Bulb — Sep 25, 2021Have you ever considered how nice it would be to wake up when the sun comes up, and to end the day when the sun goes down? In summer the days would be long and filled with memories. In winter we would head to sleep when the sun sets. Every day we would either gain three minutes or lose three minutes.... -
Switzerland: From Arid to Flooded — Jul 15, 2021Switzerland and Europe are currently experiencing flooding. All the major Swiss lakes are close to breaking their banks. A few weeks ago, you could read about how Switzerland had been so dry that it had started to register on the aridity index. Now it’s flooded.... -
Stormy Skies Near Nyon — May 3, 2022The weather was finally dynamic today. The storm warnings were flashing towards Hermance, on the French side of the lake. This gave a nice contrast between the yellow of the Colza fields and the dark threatening clouds behind.... -
Sharkwater - a documentary worth watching — Apr 17, 2016Sharkwater - A documentary worth watching. If you have one and a half hours of free time I recommend watching this documentary. It discusses the anti-whaling work by the Sea Shepherd, the work it did to combat long lining around the Galapagos and it touches on the shark finning mafia and corruption. The documentary also looks at the public perception of sharks. It shows that they are not the dangerous animal that they were thought to be until recent history. The film ends with a shot of the narrator free-diving with sharks and being perfectly relaxed. At one point he says “sharks are so sensitive that they can feel your heart beat, if you are calm they will stay but if you panic they will flee”. I paraphrased his exact words. Another theme that is explored in this documentary is the food chain. He mentions that plankton absorb a lot of Carbon dioxide and that with the overfishing of sharks the ecological balance will be ruined as the apex predators are lost. He pushes strongly for the conservation of shark numbers. We are familiar with the current Save our Sharks movement. This is an interesting investigative documentary about the economy surrounding shark finning and why it has a negative impact on the food chain. If the documentary was updated it could look at the economic viability of shark tourism that has grown in recent years. Sharks, in some places are more valuable alive than dead. If you don’t have time to watch the entire documentary then I recommend that you watch the last thirty to fourty minutes....
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A Rock Crawler and Wildlife Film Making — Jul 8, 2016When Gordon Buchanan was following bears in the United States we watched the resulting documentaries on television. We have seen him a number of times in episodes of countryfile as well. Now he is working on getting footage of wolves in the wild. For this project he is staying out in the wild and following a pack of wolves day after day for weeks. As part of this project he is filming with a broadcast camera and gopro cameras which he fixed on to a “rock crawler”. The Rock crawler is a remote control car with the body removed. The BBC were working on a documentary about polar bears and for certain shots they created a den for filming purposes. It helped to tell the story but people felt that the purity of that documentary had been tainted. This genre of documentary aims to tell a genuine story with no reconstruction or trickery. Everything has to be genuine. As we see from the footage above Gordon Buchanan was able to get the camera right up to the den and film the wolf cubs from the mouth of the den. This technology is great for story telling because it provides the camera operator with greater flexibility. He is able to get the camera to where he wants it to be without going there in person. In theory animal behaviour is genuine....
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Shark Reporting. — May 7, 2017In the age of drones this is how shark reporting should be done. The Coast guard or local surfing schools should fly a drone around and check to see whether there are any sharks present. If and when they spot a shark or groups of sharks they could temporarily close the beach until the threat is gone. It reduces the need for shark nets. It also reduces the need and desire to kill any shark that is spotted as people are informed ahead of this time. The report tells us that the sharks in the video are juveniles and that the reason for which they are on this section of beach might be linked to a dead whale floating “about eight miles away in that direction”. There is no sensationalism. We are given the facts. The report then tells people that if they do want to swim or surf and be safe they should stay near the lifeguard tower. When a whale dies it provides sharks with enough food for days or even weeks. It provides them with food until it looses buoyancy and sinks to the bottom of the sea where crabs and eels eat the remains. I’m sharing the second video because we see divers photographing and filming sharks as they eat a whale carcass. We see how close they get without any difficulties. There are a number of interesting documentaries to learn more about sharks and I recommend watching Sharkwater because it shows that rather than sharks being a threat to us it is us that are a threat to sharks. By taking a calm and rational approach to sharks we are helping preserve the ecosystem. By learning to cohabit with these animals we are allowing future generations a chance to see these animals. With today’s technology we can monitor risk, especially on calm and clear days....
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Rain and Water Tables — Jul 16, 2021There is an article on Swiss Radio and Television that discusses the positive impact that the flooding has had on the water tables. For several years not only have we had warm weather but we have also gone with very little or no rain for months at a time.... -
Playing With The Aranet 4 — Apr 15, 2022Countries like Switzerland recently decided that the pandemic was over because lobbies wanted it to be over. Despite high numbers of infections and the percentage of tests being positive Switzerland decided that the acute phase of the pandemic was over. For them the lack of deaths, and the lack of people in ICUs meant that the pandemic had entered a safe stage.... -
Outdoor Sports and Pandemics — Mar 13, 2020In theory, pandemics are terrible for your social life because you go from socialising in bars, pubs, restaurants, cinemas, theatres, and cafés to having to stay home like an indoor cat or a fish in an aquarium....
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On Not Listening to Podcasts — Sep 10, 2022There are times when I listen to two or three hours of podcasts a day and I learn from them. I usually listen when I am cooking and when I am walking. For several weeks now I have hardly listened to any podcasts. This is for three reasons....
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Northern Exposure and Blowing Bubbles — Apr 8, 2023Northern Exposure is a series about a doctor who finds himself sent to Alaska to be a doctor for a few years. He thinks that it is the middle of nowhere and he has to adapt from enjoying life as a New Yorker to life as a frontier town doctor.... -
Muddy Shoes and a Drought — Feb 16, 2023Every morning the landscape is covered in frost. That frost melts and turns to water, which in turn, turns to mud, and cakes my shoes. Unfortunately there has been no rain for weeks, and there is no rain expected for weeks. We are in another drought although most people will not call it that, yet. They prefer to enjoy the sunshine and ignore the deeper problem.... -
Mud and Walking — Feb 1, 2023I go for walks, runs or bike rides every single day, whether it’s rainy, windy, snowy or a heatwave. As a result of this I often walk along routes where mud forms. Sometimes I come home from walks and my shoes are spotless, thanks either to a drought, or paradoxically due to the rain.... -
Minimal Walking - Day 2 — May 6, 2023I went for a walk with the barefoot shoes for a second day in a row. I didn’t regret it. I need to pay more attention to how I walk, specifically I need to make sure not to slam my heel into the ground with each step and this takes focus, muscle use, and discipline.... -
Learning about Tiny Houses — Dec 5, 2016Learning about Tiny Houses is interesting. There are a number of features/documentaries online where people build their own tinyhouses either from shipping containers, trailers or other structures. The aim of these tinyhouses is to maximise space and reduce costs. Some of these homes are entirely off the grid. They collect rain water and solar panels provide power. The bedroom is often built above the kitchen and climbing wall holds are used instead of ladders or conventional stairs. One home folds out from a truck to become a castle. One tower serves as a toilet and the second one serves as a shower. The space above even features a bath. Another Tiny home is designed as a tree house providing a beautiful 360° panoramic view of the landscape around. This tiny home is interesting because it’s built out of half a shipping container. For a change the bed is below and the living room is above. The kitchen and office are next to it and there is a shower from which to watch birds. I have seen a lot of people speak about minimalist living, living off the grid and living out of cars, campers and other vehicles. By watching videos about tiny houses you begin to understand that there are certain basics that you need to have and that these basics fit in to small spaces. If you have a van, a caravan or other vehicle then you can live as comfortably as these people. This last video would make for a perfect summer home for recent university graduates or high school graduates. It’s small, light and mobile. You’re self sufficient to a great extent and as long as it’s warm you have your own space. It’s amusing that in at least three videos we hear about people learning to be neater through living in such small spaces. As a scuba diver, rock climber, cyclist and geek the biggest challenge for someone like me would be to find a place where I could store my diving gear and especially the scuba tanks. They’re bulky. Diving gear also needs to dry properly to avoid the smell of the lake (as I used to dive weekly in the lake). My view of living in a tinyhouse has changed through the watching of these documentaries. It shows you that what you want is functionality rather than size. You want “gadgets” as these maximise how you use available space....
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Justified Self-Isolation — Jul 9, 2021It is important to know that you are in Justified Self-Isolation. Over the last three or four days I have felt like an idiot for self-isolating, but I now see that this is entirely justified. The R number for some canton went from 0.70 or so up to 1.4 or higher in recent days. This is for Bern, Geneva and Vaud, and it should spread more with the weekend.... -
Ignored by Sunflowers — Jul 12, 2021The title of this post is a joke, not a serious delusion of isolation. I saw that a few sunflowers had come out but that they were looking away, rather than towards me. They are looking at the morning sun and I was walking in the afternoon. They are still in the process of coming out.... -
Clean Water for Hikes and cycling, without the weight — Jun 26, 2017Clean water is important to have when you’re cycling, hiking or climbing in summer but the issue is that it is heavy. When I go cycling I go with just one flask and I fill up the water bottle when I get to fountains that are marked as safe to drink from. When I go hiking or climbing I usually do not go with more than one and a half litres of water although I have gone with up to three litres for a hot summer day’s activities when the temperature is above 32°c. In Switzerland, France and Italy you theoretically do not need to walk with that much water because you cross streams, fountains, rivers and lakes. If you had a water filtration system you could theoretically purify the water from these sources and continue hiking. Yesterday I came across Katadyn and two solutions for water filtration....
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Half a Million Steps in July — Sep 1, 2019In July this year I took half a million steps as I was banned from driving. I’m using that phrase for comedic effect. As I had one arm in a sling driving was out of the question for a few weeks and then it was out of the question because my tendons and muscles were in need of physio therapy.... -
Growing Potatoes and Onions — Dec 8, 2022Recently I have tried growing potatoes and onions. I had flower pots left over, dormant after basil plants died. I often try to keep Basil plants growing but they have a terrible tendency to die. The easiest plant for me to grow has been an orchid that I have had for as long as the apartment in which I live. All I did was give it water, and that was enough. I would repot it but I am afraid that will kill it.... -
Flowing water - a visual experiment — Jun 26, 2016Flowing Water - A visual experiment is a simple one minute video. The first images were filmed at the Arboretum in the Jura and the timelapses show clouds playing above the Jura near La Dôle. La Dôle is where the doppler radar is located. That radar shows rainfall and precipitation so that air traffic controllers can advise pilots of weather conditions. With the amount of rain that has fallen over the last six or more weeks every river is full of water. As a result of this they are flowing fast and debris can be seen. When rivers flow fast they are fun to watch. The next step would be to capture waterfalls over a period of minutes or hours. If we stopped recording just as the rain stopped we might get interesting results. The peak wouldn’t appear until soon after the rain stopped. I was lucky with these clouds because they moved quickly from one side of the screen to the other. They also formed and dispersed quickly. As a result I could set the interval to take images every few seconds. I could quickly see the result and adjust. When I filmed the clouds I filmed the ground and the trees as they came in and out of the shadow of clouds, I filmed a tighter shot where you could see the transmission mast and then I pointed to the sky and tried to capture the movement of clouds with blue sky as a backdrop. Some moments are fun to watch....
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Flawed Thinking and Cleaning — Jun 22, 2023The Unilateral Solution... -
Experimenting With Minergie — Jun 16, 2021Minergie is theoretically a fantastic, environmentally friendly way of making a building more energy-efficient, by reducing the need for air conditioning and heating. For three years now I have been playing with and experimenting with minergie. During the first and second heatwaves, I liked to open windows and get fresh air. I found that Minergie means “poor air circulation”. As soon as you close the windows you feel the heat radiate from the walls as if they were sauna stones....
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Environmentalism and Traffic Lights — Jun 9, 2017When you’re driving from Nyon to the airport without traffic the journey takes about twenty minutes. If you decide to drive into the city of Geneva that journey time is doubled thanks in main part to traffic lights. It once took me over one hour when scuba diving in Hermance to drive from Place des Nations to the other side of the Mont Blanc Bridge. That’s over one hour for less than two kilometres. That idea cooled down my motivation to dive in Hermance. At the time I was driving a petrol rather than a diesel car. Yesterday I was driving from the foot of the Jura to Cornavin and the drive from the foot of the Jura to Geneva was fast. It’s when you drive from the motorway to the centre that you lose time. 23 minutes to drive 3.8km. I don’t have a start/stop car so when I’m spending 23 minutes at traffic lights the engine is running and polluting the air for nothing. There is no gain from blocking traffic lights. It was even worse when I was on Rue Montbrillant. The GPS indicated 15 minutes to travel about 750 metres. Can you imagine the carbon footprint of traffic lights? That’s 15 minutes of nitrous oxide that had no need to be sent into the air. Imagine the health impact of keeping vehicles trapped at traffic lights. Within 30 seconds I went right and parked at Place des Nations and walked the last 750 metres. I wasn’t going to waste 15 minutes because “environmentalists” decided that the best way to discourage people from driving was for them to sit in traffic and pollute the air. When I was working on Rue Montbrillant I was taking the train to and from Geneva every day and I used an abonnement de route to reduce cost. It works well until you’re reliant on bus schedules. Some routes have one bus an hour. This means that a 30-40 minute drive becomes a one and a half hour public transport route. If you finish your day at 1800 you’d arrive home by around 1930-2000. This means that although you’re taking the environmentally friendly option you’re spending two and a half hours a day to commute. During warmer months and drier days, the scooter was a good alternative. Within minutes you’re on the train to Geneva. That’s the paradox of environmentalism. You want people to be environmentally conscious and you want them to minimise car use but rather than provide them with time efficient solutions to encourage them to take public transport you trap them at traffic lights. Waze, Tomtom and other GPS manufacturers should take the heat maps we generate with our mobile devices every time we drive and design public transport infrastructures to replace the need for cars. This data is already available. Below are two heat maps of cycling around London and Switzerland. If you used the same type of data from cars you could design a system that replaces the need for cars. When you live in a city you see two kilometres as a big distance to drive but when you’re in the countryside 2km is nothing. London on a bike feels tiny after walking and taking public transport. In Geneva it’s not that you have much traffic. It’s that the traffic lights give the illusion of traffic. Most of the side streets are empty of traffic most of the time. [caption id=“attachment_3570” align=“aligncenter”] Distances in London are shrunk by bike. I think it’s the best form of transport, when the weather is favourable. This week I wanted to cycle in to Geneva for my lunch time meetings but chose not to because the bike ride is energetic enough without the weight of a 15inch laptop on your back. I did buy a bluetooth keyboard for the mobile phone as a mac book air replacement. That should make cycling more pleasant. I also have spare tires in case I get a puncture. [caption id=“attachment_3571” align=“aligncenter”] Cycling in Switzerland and France Geneva’s traffic light policy did work on me. Several years ago I became so tired of waiting at traffic lights when driving into and out of Geneva that I stopped going. Instead of meeting people in Geneva I drove to various lakes to scuba dive and to the mountains to climb, hike, cycle and do other more environmentally friendly activities. This is especially true when we drive other participants. When I climb Fort L’écluse I meet people at CERN and when I meet people to go to Swiss VF I meet them at the Nyon train station, Fourmi metro stations or even the Lavaux motorway stop.... -
Ecosia - Planting trees with a search engine — May 29, 2017Ecosia is an environmental search engine for those who want to do social good through their web browsing habits. The principle is simple. You go to the Ecosia main page and type in your search engine query. For every search engine query that you do ad revenue is generated. This ad revenue is then invested into tree growing projects in a number of countries. [caption id=“attachment_3527” align=“aligncenter”] At the time of writing, Ecosia earned enough to plant 8.2 million trees. Deforestation is a threat faced around the world because as trees are removed so the environment of certain species is destroyed and this can lead to the extinction of species. The other consequences of deforestation are that the soil runs off of the land and clogs rivers. It also means that the humidity that was kept around by the trees and plants is now gone. When I worked as a video archivist I watched news items about refugees and how they were planting trees in their camps. They planted them as an investment in the future. Ecosia produced a video with a similar message which you can see above. They currently have projects in Peru, Madagascar, Burkina Faso, Tanzania and Indonesia. These projects cover a number of needs. They help to reforest areas where excessive logging has taken place such as in Peru. In Madagascar they are hiring villagers to replant the forests to help preserve biodiversity. In Burkina Faso they are planting trees to try to stop the desert from encroaching on the areas where people live. In Tanzania we find another conservation of biodiversity effort. In Indonesia they are planting ten tree species to stop the spread of Palm oil farming and to save the natural habitat of Orang Utangs. Europe, North America and other parts of the world were once covered in forests that were thick and full of life. With population growth and development forests were cut down for firewood and to provide space for fields and more. It is nice to know that today there are projects like Ecosia that aim to reforest areas around the world so that future generations may still play and enjoy forested landscapes. Either install the Chrome plugin or bookmark the website.... -
Earth Day - Some Simple Acts — Apr 22, 2023Today is Earth Day, as Google, Moleskine and other companies are reminding us of. Earth Day is an opportunity to think about how to reduce our carbon footprint and ecological impact.... -
Dirty Gold War screening at the Graduate Institute. — May 3, 2017I went to watch Dirty Gold War at the Graduate Institute at lunch time today. The film is interesting because it makes you think about the environmental impact of gold mining. We’re familiar with the stories of gold mines in South Africa. We’re familiar with the stories of the gold rush. We don’t often think of the environmental impact of Gold mining in rain forests in Latin America. This documentary introduces the topic well. It brings our attention to the fact that when people buy luxury products like gold watches, bracelets and other objects they are buying objects that have no environmental or ethical credentials. It leads us to question when the luxury industries will be accountable to such considerations. Mobile Phones, laptops, televisions and other devices all contain traces of gold. If that gold is sourced from environmentally unfriendly sources then we are contributing to the destruction of the rainforests and the poisoning of ecosystems. Fairphone and other companies with such goals benefit from such documentaries because we are shown why their goals are so important. It contextualises their mission and their reason for being. It also helps to put pressure on all electronics manufacturers to do more to reduce their impact on the environment. Dirty Gold is a topic that does not get much attention. As I reach the conclusion of this blog post I find that Dirty gold points to a music album rather than gold mining. We need to raise awareness of this topic. People are wearing wedding wings, luxury products and using electronic devices that are in part for the degradation of the environment. As awareness of these issues grows so companies like Apple, Sony and others should work to ensure a clean product line, from raw material in the ground to the finished product....
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Day Twenty-Three of ORCA in Switzerland – The Chernobyl Fire — Apr 7, 2020In normal times a forest fire in the Chernobyl exlusion zone would attract attention and environmentalists would actively speak about it. The world would pay attention. Due to the pandemic the news story is low on the agenda.... -
Day Twenty-seven of ORCA in Switzerland - River Walking — Apr 11, 2020My shoes are wet and my socks are wet because today I tried river walking. If a child was to do the same it would be called immature and irrational but when an adult does it then it’s adventure, and trying something new.... -
Day Twenty-One of ORCA in Switzerland – A Morning Walk — Apr 5, 2020I had a morning walk this morning because I found that there are too many people to avoid during my afternoon walks. During my morning walk I took images of flowering plants, bees collecting pollen from flowers, roses budding and Apple orchards getting ready to blossom.... -
Day Twenty of ORCA in Switzerland – An Island of Tranquility — Apr 4, 2020Today I went on my daily walk and found an island of tranquility. Instead of walking in one direction I reversed it. In doing so I saw the river from another point of view. I was on a trail and saw that I could get down to the riverbed and did. I saw a tree lying from one bank to the other and I thought, “Look, a bridge” but of course I didn’t cross it because I’d have fallen in.... -
Day Twenty-Nine of ORCA in Switzerland – A Desire To Go On A Hike — Apr 13, 2020We’re in day 29 of ORCA in Switzerland and I have an ever increasing desire to go for a hike. During today’s walk I listened to two podcasts about hiking and I walked yet another variant of my usual walk. Apple tree blooms are increasing in number and the Colza looks almost ready to harvest.... -
Day Twenty-Four of ORCA in Switzerland – The Smell of Colza — Apr 8, 2020Today I walked along roads that would be filled with non-stop traffic if we weren’t in a pandemic. As a result I could enjoy almost the entire walk without avoiding people. In the process I passed by colza fields, an open garden centre and more. The image above is of a colza field, looking towards the lake, the Alps and the Mont Blanc.... -
Day Twenty-Five of ORCA in Switzerland – The Passing Of A Friend — Apr 9, 2020Today I learned of the passing of a friend, due to complications after struggling to beat cancer. I was made ready for the news today by a post that he was very sick yesterday. I didn’t know the details at the time. It was one of the first posts I saw on Facebook this morning.... -
Day Twenty-Six of ORCA in Switzerland – Playing With 360 Video — Apr 10, 2020It’s Day 26 and today I was playing with 360 video. Specifically I went for a walk in the woods and placed the camera ahead of me to provide people with the opportunity to look around. Doing this is a risky strategy during the pandemic because if you cross paths with anyone there is nowhere to avoid them. I quickly went back to open space and retreated for home. One runner passed too close.... -
Day Twenty-eight of ORCA in Switzerland – A Photo Walk — Apr 12, 2020Today I went on a photo walk. Since walking far is now out of the question if you want to be consistently socially distanced it makes sense to go out with a different purpose. When the purpose of the walk is to take photos you can afford to walk up a hill, or between two people to avoid being too close.... -
Day Thirty-One of ORCA in Switzerland — Plenty of Dust — Apr 15, 2020You build up plenty of dust as you plow the fields at the moment. The drought continues, as does the desire for this pandemic to be over. For now, the downward trend continues so we could feel optimistic. I’m still optimistic than in two or three weeks recycling centres will go back to normal. At the moment recycling centres remind me of something else.... -
Day Thirty of ORCA in Switzerland -- A Strong Desire to Go Hiking. — Apr 14, 2020I have a strong desire to go hiking. I would like to go on a hiking excursion that lasts for a few days. In theory I could do the Via Alpina route one starting in Nyon and ending in Lichtenstein. It’s a 21 step hike going north.... -
Day Thirteen of Orca in Switzerland – Reaching Goals — Mar 28, 2020Life during a Pandemic is quite the existential challenge so reaching goals is good. Today I walked the last two kilometres to reach the March challenge goal of walking 298.8Km. In ordinary times this would be a great achievement but during a pandemic, it’s even more interesting.... -
Day Sixteen of ORCA in Switzerland – Pandemic Solitude — Mar 31, 2020I was writing a Facebook post when I thought of the term Pandemic Solitude and I love it so much that I wanted to use it as a title for today’s blog post. For most people during the pandemic the order is, stay with the people you live with but avoid being close to others.... -
Day Six of Orca in Switzerland – Stricter measures. — Mar 21, 2020Today’ I’d like to discuss stricter measures. Coop and Migros both have online shops set up for home delivery but the system is overloaded by people ordering at the same time. They don’t have the truck fleet or staff to cope with the demand so I suggest a better solution....
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Day Seventeen of ORCA in Switzerland – April Fool's During Self Isolation — Apr 1, 2020April Fool’s during self isolation is not fun. People made jokes about how our freedoms would be limited even further. In ordinary situations those jokes would be detected but because we have the freedom to get food, go for walks, and sit at home we have no other rewards as such. One of the jokes was that bandwidth would be throttled. The second was that Strava would be used to track people and the third was that bikes with handlebars would be allowed but not racing style bikes.... -
Day One of ORCA in Switzerland — Mar 16, 2020During the weekend I thought that being in self-isolation would be a pleasant and enjoyable experience. The sound of cars is diminished. More people are walking and going for bike rides and the level of pollution could decline for at least a few days or even weeks.... -
Day Nineteen of ORCA in Switzerland – TGIF — Apr 3, 2020Do you have that TGIF feeling like no one else does? In theory today is the day when people are happy, knowing that the weekend is about to start and they can do the things they love for the next two days. In this context though, that is unlikely. We’re meant to stay home....
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Day ten of Orca in Switzerland – The New Normal — Mar 25, 2020Today I’m getting to grips with the new normal. The new normal is queuing like people did before self-checkout and other technology. We also need to queue to get into shops and you either need to take a trolley or a shopping bag if you want to buy things. No more baskets as they are harder to disinfect and keep clean.... -
Day Nine of Orca in Switzerland - Not Our first Epidemic, but the most severe. — Mar 24, 2020This is not our first epidemic. In the 21st century I saw the actions to spread Foot and Mouth from spreading in South West England. Dartmoor was closed and precautions were taken to protect animals. We also lived through the BSE crisis, i.e. Mad cow disease....
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Day Fourteen of Orca in Switzerland – Simulating An Epidemic — Mar 29, 2020This morning I watched the Simulating an epidemic and it’s interesting. The person is not an expert. He played with various models to show how epidemics spread over a period of time when variables such as infectiousness, social distancing, quarantining and other variables are implemented.... -
Day Four of Orca in Switzerland - Exploring the Trail Less Travelled — Mar 19, 2020Today is Day Four of Orca in Switzerland and I saw that the Canton in which I live has the most active cases of COVID19 so my motivation both to go to shops and to go for walks has taken a hit. At the same time I don’t know whether it’s COVID 19 that is having this effect or the fact that I walked a theoretical 197.2 kilometres since the start of this month for the March Activity challenge.... -
Day Fifteen of ORCA in Switzerland – Pandemic Fatigue — Mar 30, 2020Now that we’re in week 5 of self-isolation and Day fifteen of ORCA I am getting pandemic fatigue. As it’s Monday I could make the effort of going to the shops to get fresh food rather than deplete the reserves I have but my motivation is not there. It has come cold and windy and the rate of infection is still high. I expect that by the end of today Vaud will hit the three thousand case mark.... -
Day Eleven of Orca in Switzerland – Clothes Have Been Barricaded Away — Mar 26, 2020Today’s joke is that clothes have been barricaded away as you can see in the featured photo. I find the idea of hiding clothing behind a wall of beers amusing. How often would you see this. I hope that your underwear and socks are new because if they’re not you may spend weeks or even months feeling uncomfortable.... -
Day Eighteen of ORCA in Switzerland – Plumbing and Scuba Diving. — Apr 3, 2020Plumbing and scuba diving are not unrelated. If you understand o-rings and pipe/hose connections then you’ll be fine. I dismantled a system, cleaned it, and then reassembled it, checked for leaks and then ran the tap to see if all was well. Once I saw that everything was indeed well, I struggled to place the drawers and then moved onto the next issue....
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Day Eight of Orca in Switzerland - Herded like Cattle — Mar 23, 2020Today I was herded like cattle at the shops and walked along the edge of a field I had never walked along before.... -
Day 64 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – "When I'm 64" — May 18, 2020Earlier today or yesterday at some point I was thinking of the song When I’m 64, and that I should share it. I’m not 64. Quarantine hasn’t aged me so drastically. I felt the need to make that joke.... -
Day 42 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – A Few Minutes of Rain — Apr 26, 2020Today at around lunchtime we had a few minutes of rain for the first time in weeks but it didn’t last long. By the time I went out for my daily walk the ground was dry, as if it hadn’t rained at all. There was no mud to walk through so I came back as clean as when I left.... -
Day 41 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – Reverse Journey — Apr 25, 2020Today I ran and then walked a reverse journey of what I did yesterday. I wanted to take a picture of the corkscrew tree. It would have required for me to wait for two slow walkers and their dog to pass and because they insisted on walking two abreast it made more sense to turn around and take an alternate route.... -
Day 40 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – Local Adventures — Apr 24, 2020For this 40th blog post on the topic of self-isolation, I’d like to speak about local adventures. I feel the need to do this because I see people posting about their trips to someone two to three hours from live and work during a pandemic and I strongly believe that getting into a car to have an adventure far from home at this time is short-sighted and selfish.... -
Day 38 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – Contact Sports — Apr 22, 2020By May we may be able to go back to doing sports in groups as long as they are not “contact sports” in Switzerland. For me this means hiking, running cycling and other related sports. For me climbing is a contact sport because we touch the same hand holds as everyone else climbing the routes, we use the same ropes and we share quickdraws and belay devices.... -
Day 37 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – The Future, Or Uncertainty — Apr 21, 2020I question whether we’re living in the future, or uncertainty during this pandemic. One friend on Facebook wrote that Coronavirus is making us live in the future because of a number of reasons, as listed in the embedded post below.... -
Day 34 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – A Daily Bike Ride — Apr 18, 2020When the Pandemic was just starting I thought that this would be perfect for a daily bike ride and I was tempted to go to the mountains and to do other things. I didn’t though, because emergency services said "Don’t monopolise our resources getting injured because we may be required to help with the COVID-19 situation. Within three or four weeks they changed their statement to "if you need help we’re still here, our emergency services are still working as normal.... -
Day 33 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – A video walk — Apr 17, 2020Today I went on a video walk with the DJI OSMO pocket three or whichever number it has and I took a series of frames. Before going for my daily walk I searched through the Vision Du Réel virtual Film Festival list of films and I found “The Bridge”. It’s available for all to watch during the festival. I didn’t watch it in full but from what I saw it’s a series of shots in the style of Dziga Vertov’s Man With the Movie Camera.... -
Day 32 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland - A Single Tab Open — Apr 16, 2020I have a single tab open in Chrome at the moment, my main browser. This window, to write this blog post. We are now in Day 32 of self-isolation and I’m keeping myself distracted through blogging, making webpages mobile friendly and more. I’m also limiting the time I spend on news websites, social media and more. I have a five minute time limit on social media apps on my phones.... -
Coastal Erosion and Archeology — Feb 20, 2022https://twitter.com/Artifacthub\_/status/1495172541152849923... -
Cloud Timelapses — Oct 18, 2019Cloud timelapses are fun when you can put the camera somewhere and go and do something else. Yesterday I knew that we would go from blue skies and sparse clouds to overcast and rainy so I set up the camera to record a timelapse. I set the interval to one setting and the number of frames to one. You see the rain clouds form and then the rain starts....
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Childhood and environmental conscience in Switzerland — Oct 8, 2015I attended the Green Cross International event in Geneva and took pages and pages of notes. There was a lot of information and a focus to provide COP21 in Paris with a message from Geneva, Humanitarian city to Paris and the leaders present for that conference. Dr. Somthai Wongcharoen "“ Founder, Wongpanit Group of Companies (Thailand) made a speech about the company he started in 1976. He saw waste not as a problem but as a resource. Through encouraging people to bring their rubbish and paying for it, by establishing recycling centres around the world he helped turn waste in to commodities. During his presentation the topics he covered were familiar. That’s because in Switzerland PET plastic has been recycled for 25 years, a quarter of a century. It is an inherent part of my character that I will recycle plastic bottles whenever I can. Recycling culture in my village is strong. For several years now we have had a recycling centre rather than a dump. Aluminium, PET plastic, other plastics, paper, and cardboard are all recycled. So is garden rubbish. The amount of rubbish that heads to an incinerator is now a third of a bag every three weeks. In other words I drive to the recycling centre and drop off recycling in the appropriate places and the waste that heads to an incinerator is minimal. This is such an ordinary part of my life, as a person living in the Canton de Vaud that I feel bad about throwing away rubbish in garbage bags rather than sorting it. Recycling is easy. I started as a child and continued as an adult. It is nice that it has become such an important part of village life. It seems funny that just 20 minutes from where I live recycling culture is so much weaker. I’m thinking of Geneva. In Geneva people still treat rubbish the old fashioned way. They don’t sort it. This is an abberation and I hope and want Geneva to follow suit. I want to see more places like we see in Geneva train station. In the train station you can sort your rubbish by PET, Paper, Aluminium or other. This is a fantastic initiative by the CFF and needs to spread to conference centres, places of employment and more. If you sell aluminium cans or plastic bottles you should offer a place to recycle these resources. I will leave you this video to show how waste management can be seen as resource management....
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Banning Traffic from Cornavin — Feb 14, 2020Although this article is two years old La Tribune de Genève wrote again about it and it appeared in my Google Newsfeed. I am not opposed to making cities pedestrian because I love to walk more than I like buses, trains, or other forms of transport....
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An Entire Day Of Rain — Jul 7, 2021Due to the lack of rain for a few years, and the lack of opportunities to socialise through sporting activities, I look forward to rain. Yesterday we were lucky. We got an entire day’s worth of rain. I didn’t leave the flat for the entire day and I still slept fine.... -
A Windy Day In Geneva — Jan 19, 2020They announced that it would be windy today and it is. Windy days are fun because the lake goes from blue or green to English Breakfast tea brown. The waves crash against the walls and spray the promenade that goes from the Pont Du Mont Blanc to the Jardin Anglais. For now it’s getting things wet. With the right wind and low temperatures it could be great for the taking of photos.... -
A Tractor Ploughing A Dry Field in Switzerland — Aug 31, 2021Today a tractor was ploughing a dry field. A cloud of dust was not that visible but you can see that rain would now be welcome. I walked by the usual river and looked down and the rocks in the riverbed are uncovered. There is no water running over them anymore. I notied that in another field pumpkins seem to be ready.... -
A Snowy Day — Jan 18, 2023Yesterday we had a snowy day. I saw that the snow was beginning to pile up so I went and cleared the snow for fun. I could have left it as it was but I saw an opportunity to have some weight training, for free.... -
A Run And A Walk — Feb 2, 2023I am going for a run and a walk three times a week at the moment. The run is set by the Garmin Coach and the walk is set by the route I have chosen to use on that specific day. By running the first part of my daily walk I increase my fitness, according to Strava, Sports Tracker and one or two other apps.... -
A River Runs Dry, Wood builds a Natural Dam and Corn Grows Eratically. — Sep 14, 2021When rain becomes a treat you get used to looking at rivers that are running drier and drier with every passing day. The river pictured below is so low that you see the river bed in many parts. It’s a meter or more below it’s usual level. Imagine being a weather forecaster during a drought. Today it will be dry and sunny, as it has been for a few seasons.... -
A Plastic Ocean - Recycle more — Jun 1, 2017A Plastic Ocean is an excellent documentary detailing the problems and threats caused by plastics entering water systems and eventually reaching the seas and oceans. This documentary starts with a team trying to film whales. When they finally do find the whales off the coast of Sri Lanka they notice that there is a film of oil and plastic build up miles from the shore. They say that this bit of ocean should be clean as the beaches had been unused for years. They suspect that the plastic had been freed after heavy rains flushed them out to sea. I went to the Graduate institute to watch this film last night and the crowd was already well informed. When one speaker asked, “Did you know that the Plastic Ocean problem was this serious” at least half of the room, if not more raised their hand. When people were asked about the zero waste movement at least a third of people raised their hand. The auditorium was filled to capacity.... -
A Homemade Electric Car - Youtube Video — Feb 25, 2020On one side of the Channel, you have people like Colin Furze building fun machines that have the fatal flaw of having an internal combustion engine. On the other side of the Channel, you have people like Marc Gyver building an electric car with easily bought components. The video below shows the construction process without talking, and without music....
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A dry Paléo — Jul 25, 2017A Dry Paléo after the rain... -
The Unceertain Train Journey — Nov 6, 2024For years I automatically took the car for everything I did, or almost. Over the last seven or eight years that habit has changed as I grew used to walking locally, and catching the train to activities. This shift in habits is due to two things....
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Shopping With an E-Scooter — Jul 18, 2024Over the years I have enjoyed driving to the shops with a petrol driven scooter for daily shops. I liked that it was small, light and convenient. I only got rid of it, after sixteen years of use because of the cost for a service. Usually it was about 500 but I was quoted 500 CHF, so that’s when I decided to be done with it.... -
CoffeeB Compost — Jun 29, 2024For several weeks I have been using CoffeeB capsules to prepare coffee in an environmentally more friendly manner. In the process I used an old ice cream box made from cardboard to store the punctured balls of seaweed coffee.... -
The Curse of the Summer Music Festival — Jun 5, 2024In the good old days noisy music festivals made sense, because technology was not what it is today. There was no choice but to build huge speaker stacks with huge amounts of power, to deafen an entire crowd of festival goers. It was also a different age, where attitudes to noise pollution were different.... -
CoffeeB - No Plastic, No Aluminium — May 22, 2024I have played with Dolce Gusto machines and Nespresso machines and both of them have the same flaw. They’re quick and convenient when you’re preparing coffee but less convenient when you need to get rid of the capsules. With Nespresso getting rid of the aluminium capsules is easy, once you have a container for them. You amass them at home and when you go to the recycling centre you have two wheelie bins devoted to the task of recovering the aluminium capsules and their content.... -
Fourty Five Days with the Cloudneo — Dec 3, 2023Intro... -
Rural Solar Panels — Oct 8, 2023Sunak and Solar...
