Category: post

Hypocrisy

A van, driving towards me, dangerously overtook a cyclist. I muttered a few curses at the driver, and my dormant dislike of the van drivers came shooting up.

As the driver went past, I saw his face. I know him. He’s a lovely guy, with the friendliest dog I know – a lovely border collie named Butler.

I like the guy. I hated the van driver.

I should talk to him about the incident. I will not. We don’t talk about unpleasant things in society.

He didn’t harm anyone. He’s a pleasant guy. I really love this dog.

He didn’t hurt anyone. But he could have looked someone. Some day, he might.

I should talk to him. I won’t.

I’m ashamed. I’ll get over it.

Continue reading Hypocrisy

Conditioning, fear, and Garmin step target

I couldn’t run much over the summer due to an injury I’ve been carrying since spring (and done nothing about).

So, to make up for the lost miles, I ended up doing a long step goal streak on my Garmin. I started the streak with a step target of 8731.

With the default setting, Garmin automatically adjusts the step target up/down based on how you did the previous day. So, just achieving the target increases the goal only by a few dozen steps. Go overboard, and exceed the target by a few thousand steps, and the next days goal will jump by a few hundred steps.

As expected, very quickly, I started planning so that I didn’t exceed the goal by much. It couldn’t be managed on many days – Monday track runs, Thursday club runs, and weekend chores meant those days usually ended anywhere from 50% higher to even 2x. Still, I tried on the days I could.

I ended the streak [^1], 74 days later, with a step target of 15,223.

Now that we’re back from holiday, and I’m starting to give running another go, I still wanted to keep up the steps. But, tired of being scared of an ever increasing target, I decided to go with a static target of 12,000 steps a day.

It’s a good, high-ish step goal, yet not one that I’d have to really slog on non-run days to achieve like those 14000+ targets were. 

On 5 of 6 days since starting this new streak, I’ve ended up with 3000+ steps over target. Success.

Also, a problem. 

While the Garmin watch has been configured to keep the target static, my head has not.

Over the long streak period this summer, my brain got conditioned to expecting a higher step goal of I exceeded the target by a lot. So, everyday, once the days steps start heading north of 13-14K, I start feeling mild, subconscious panic. 

The conscious knows that the goal won’t change, but the subconscious has been trained to be afraid of exceeding it by much.

It’s pain from overtraining. Of my brain. In response to a stimuli that doesn’t represent a threat anymore.

Conditioning. Fear. Garmin step target. Buggers all!

Guardian of my galaxy

My boy is so good. Dunno how I’ll survive in this wicked world without him.

He just defended the house from a pigeon who dared to sit on the conservatory roof.

That was 15 mins after defending Dudley from the blue van lady who was trying to steal him (D‘s day care pickup 😂)

All this hard work in just first 30 mins of being awake.

So much work! No wonder he’s always tired and sleeping!

Upgrading HDD → SSD

The hard disk on my laptop1 had been giving signs of being near failing. So, the weekend before last, I finally upgraded it to an SSD2.

The physical replacement was quick and easy. After considering just moving (cloning) the setup from my old hard disk, I decided to instead do a fresh OS install. The OS install was a breeze, but setting up all my customisations took a while. I live and work in Dropbox. Getting it all to download and sync took a few more days as well.

I had been dithering on this upgrade for over a year, and only did it now because of the state of the old HDD. Should’ve done it way earlier!

The transformation has been … extreme. So much so that it’s disrupted my workflow.

Earlier I used to switch on the laptop, and go to the kitchen to (say) put on water to boil for coffee. I’d come back a couple of minutes later to log in, then go back to the kitchen while the login & startup apps started. Another 5 or so mins later I’d come back and start Chrome and other core apps. This time, I’d pour the coffee out of easy filter, drink half a mug, and be back to see the apps almost fully open.

Now: I switch on the laptop, and by the time I’ve gotten up from the chair it’s asking for the password. Sit down, type password, press enter. By the time I slide in the keyboard tray and get up, it’s already logged in and ready. Start Chrome and other apps, and start to walk to the kitchen. Before I’ve left the room, everything is ready and waiting for work to start!

It’s too fast. Almost discomfortingly fast. I’ve lost my moments of peace, moments when I got lost in thoughts, did deep mental dives, meditated, or went to the loo. All while the computer was processing something. The upgrade means I don’t have time for any of those things anymore. Hell, I barely have time to breathe!

So, here’s my recommendation: If you want peace of mind, and calm, thoughtful breaks in your workflow, stay with an HDD in your system.

If you’re one of those blitzy fast cars type, dump the HDD, and upgrade to an SSD right away!

  1. I have a 5+ yo Samsung Series 5 laptop that I absolutely love. The only other change I’ve made to it is an upgrade to 8GB RAM. One big reason I haven’t bothered getting a new laptop is that there’s still nothing out there that’s good enough to entice me away from this. ↩
  2. Upgraded from a 500GB in build Samsung HDD to a 1GB Samsung 850 EVO. It’s at the higher end of SSDs, but the performance improvement so far has removed any qualms I had about paying £20 extra over the best alternative. It may have also helped that my HDD had never had more than 10% free space in last few years. ↩

Bloopers reel – today’s entry

Missed my morning coffee, and the heat was getting to me, so I kept a Coke Zero in the freezer. At 10:30 AM.

Life caught up. Got busy with gardening, with managing the heat for both of us, then picking up Raghs from the station, out for lunch, cleaning up, resting, evening walk, and more… stuff.

20:45. Remembered that I had left that Coke Zero in the freezer. Of course, it was a bit too late.

The upside: Freezer got a long overdue deep clean.