Tokyo 2020
Some will say there are better things to do on a Friday evening than to watch six hours of Olympic road cycling. I beg to differ and enjoyed ever bit of it, including the long lead up to the Mikuni pass.
A lot had been said before and during the Tour de France about last night’s race. I had ignored most of it, and didn’t realize how tough the final climb would be.
I was disappointed Greg Van Avermaet shot his cartouche way too early in the race. That didn’t help anyone but the competition. Also Remco’s attack was too early, and left Wout without a possible helper in the final 30km.
Thus, it became everybody against Wout. He was strong, very strong. Yet, so was Richard Carapaz. He took full advantage of the situation and is the deserved winner of the gold medal.
In a nutshell,
- Richard, the sensei, strong and clever, deserved the gold.
- Wout, the lion, strong and who fought hard and gave it all. Silver, with a hint of gold.
- Tadej, the yellow-jersey wearing mountain goat with a surprising end sprint. Bronze.
- Remco, a mere pussycat, who lacked a punch, and was no factor.
- Mauri, the dancer, swinging up the mountain.
- Jan Tratnik, the beast, who was incredible and relentless closing the gap on the early group.
July 24, 2021
Tony
I have always been an Anthony Bourdain fan. He was on my short list of people I wish I could hang out with for an evening or a weekend.
I was also curious to his method of working as a travel and culinary writer and documentary maker.
I will definitely look for the Roadrunner documentary about his life.
Because Tony was an overly romantic man who spent his life chasing many dragons: heroin, booze, success, food, jiu-jitsu, love and even justice. And when the initial rush proved fleeting, he would move on. Or he would re-engineer his memory of things, as writers often tend to do. One childhood friend of Tony’s told me that his gift was that he could make everything sound more interesting than it actually was. - Sfgate
July 22, 2021
Tour de France 2021
I followed the tour primarily indirectly through podcasts from De Tribune and The Move, a bit of Villa Sporza and Vive Le Velo on Belgian TV, and via Twitter. I did end up watching another win by Wout Van Aert on the cobblestones of the Champs Elysees. Wow!
If I had to summarize this tour in a few sentences, it is that:
- Tadej is the boss. A young playful boss, but one in command and one we’ll see for many years. What a strong rider.
- Cav was the dream. The happy ending of a Hollywood movie. The hope for any older sportsman. A publicity gift from the gods for team DeCeunick-Quickstep.
- Wout is the star. Mont Ventoux, Time Trail and a sprint on the Champs Elysess. A better all-rounder doesn’t exist in the peloton right now.
- Matthieu was the shooting star. He came, dazzled, and went before it was over.
- Lots of kids in Slovenia will start racing their bikes. We will see another generation in about 10 years.
As I listened to the final Vive le Velo, I was flabbergasted about how little money these top sporters make. The prize money is a disgrace. Tadej receives a check of $500KEuros, which he has to split with his team. The estimation is about $30KEuros per rider for the winning team. However, most riders in other teams who made it to Paris only take home an extra $1500 Euros.
By comparison, the winner of Roland Garros receives $1.4M, not to be split. And the losers in the first round of the tournament still get $60KEuros. Roland Garros brings in about the same amount of revenue as the Tour.
This ain’t right.
July 18, 2021
Don’t trust the machine nor Facebook
Today, Biden amped up the rhetoric about COVID-19 misinformation and the role of Facebook.
The title of Kara Swisher’s opinion piece is right on.
Biden is wrong about the role the government should have in deciding what should and shouldn’t be shared on social media, or any media or who. That is, unless it is call for violence.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
On the other hand, he is right in calling out disinformation. The government has an important duty to educate and communicate truthfully. Especially in times of crisis. So give us the facts, give us the scientific data, and update us on changes thereof. And please don’t jap about alternative facts, nor start removing data from government websites when it doesn’t fit your politics.
By jumping from calling out the distributors of lies to censorship, Biden went too far.
As it happens, I have been reading and listening to The Data Dedective, by Tim Harford. On my run this evening, I listened to Rule Seven: demand transparency. The chapter could not have been more timely.
It starts by telling the story of Google Flu Trends (GFT) and how initially it was able to detect a flu outbreak before the CDC noticed it. However over time, the machine and algorithm lost its mojo and guiding quality. Big data and machine learning is really hard. Even it is for a noble cause as flu detection.
This is also why you definitely shouldn’t trust the recommendation algorithms from Facebook, or even the content shared on Facebook. There is no noble cause there, except Mark’s Bank of America account.
“a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes,”
July 16, 2021
Italy Beats England in the European Championship 2020
Few things are more daunting as entering the lion’s den to watch the final of the European Championship 2020, between England and Italy.
I was clearly rooting for Italy. After all they beat Belgium. And most of all they demonstrated beautiful attacking soccer. It was anti-Italian Italian football: attacking, dominating in the midfield and clinical in the defense.
Thus, here we were, entering the Britannia Arms in Cupertino, passing the many Saint-George Cross English flags to set up near in the left corner of the bar.
Youngsters with even a slight connection to England felt that standing for the national anthem was the right thing to do, while they pulled up the lyrics on their iPhones. Ha! The elders just braced themselves for a battle, as they poured another pint.
The chants varied from “Sweet Caroline”, “England, England” to “It’s coming home!” Home to what, I keep wondering. England never won a European championship, and their one Worldcup win was dubious at best.
Unfortunately, the game started with a master stroke from the English. 1-0. It changed the entire final. England never got into their game. And Italy was out of it until the second half.
In the second half, Italy started showing their true selves again. “Finally!”, as you could hear from the left corner of the bar. England never got into it. Where were Kane and Sterling?
I felt for the 2 Italian sitting at a table in Azzurri attire near the bar. They were the only ones brave enough to show the colors of the enemy.
The penalty series were fascinating: not because there were ever nerve racking penalties to decide the European champions, but because here we were in a British pub watching the penalties.
The ups and downs were tremendous: the save from Pickford, the misses from the British youngsters.
Italy wins!
The bar emptied in a heartbeat. The stranglers only had one complaint: “It was Southgate! We need to get rid of coach Southgate.”
July 11, 2021
First real-use impressions of my iPad Air
I’ve been using my new iPad Air for a two weeks. Since, I bought a Spigen protecting case and stand. This saves me a separate stand.
Thus far, the experience has been excellent. I enjoy switching between a keyboard and a tablet set up. I read the news, browse the web and scroll through Twitter in tablet mode. I write using my Bluetooth keyboard. I have to admit that Microsoft was onto something when they first came up with the transformer-laptop-tablet, or however they called it.
Wherever I can, I install the iPad application: e.g., I installed the Medium app, rather than accessing it via the browser. iPad native applications provide regularly a superior experience over a browser-based version. There are exceptions though. For example, the Google Sheets application is limited in functionality and inferior to the the browser-based version. I could not figure out how to format a cell in the app and had to resort to the browser.
There have been a few cases where I missed a large monitor. My work setup includes a large monitor, mechanical keyboard and vertical mouse. I haven’t tried if my iPad can connect to an external monitor.
I haven’t felt I needed a trackpad. The touch screen is right there in front of me. Since I have an external Bluetooth trackpad, I will try it out when I at home. However, it is not something I plan to drag along on the move. My roaming kit is a simple sleeve with an iPad, the keyboard and my AirPods. I do miss the audio jack, as my more comfortable headphones are not Bluetooth-enabled.
The iPad Air surely is a step up from the older iPads I used. Those felt a smaller cousin to a laptop. Thus far, I have not felt that way with the iPad Air, for the read-write-check type of daily tasks.
July 5, 2021
Fourth of July
The last few Fourth of July celebrations we spent with friends, at a block party in a more affluent part of San Jose. Red, white and blue. Barbecue and apple pie. It all feels bliss.
And yet.
We drove home listening to a Fourth of July playlist featuring Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA, John Mellencamp’s Jack and Diane, Miley Cyrus’ Party in the U.S.A., and the classic by Lee Greenwood.
If tomorrow all the things were gone
I worked for all my life
And I had to start again
With just my children and my wife
I’d thank my lucky stars
To be livin’ here today
’Cause the flag still stands for freedom
And they can’t take that away
And I’m proud to be an American
Where at least I know I’m free
And I won’t forget the men who died
Who gave that right to me
And I’d gladly stand up
Next to you and defend her still today
’Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land
God bless the USA
As we drove from the richness of the Rose Garden past the fairly recent shanty town along Guadalupe Gardens, the contrast of America could not be more clear. People are living in tents and rickety trailers, scavenging garbage for cans.
We would be better of investing a little time today in helping those for whom America doesn’t feel like a dream today. That would be true patriotism. Share some of that “freedom”.
July 4, 2021
If everybody did billing like doctors and hospitals
As the surgeon returned to car dealership to pick up his car, he wasn’t happy. He had taken his Land Rover for a tune up and to check out where the liquid on his squeaky clean garage floor was coming from.
The dealership had found the leak, did a full tune up, and even had cleaned his car in and outside. The free detailing was part of the superior service Land Rover provided its customers.
And yet, the doctor was not pleased. He was surprised by the bill: it was much different from what he was told when he had dropped off the car: Tune Up $449 + leak detection: $150 = $599 estimate.
He received the following combined bill:
- Regular Tune Up: $449
- Oil filter and oil: $200 - this was apparently not part of the original fee. The regular tune up fee is only for the facilities, oil drain pit and access to the shop. It doesn’t cover materials.
- Recycling fee: $15
- Overalls cleaning fee: $25 x 2 = $50
- Covid surcharge: $25
- Leak mechanic: $260 - He is not affiliated with the dealership and uses his own billing service. His fee was not included in the original estimate, yet nobody informed the doctor.
- Oil mechanic: $130 - He too uses his own billing service, though he is part of the Land Rover network, and therefor you get a discount.
- Gasket: $25
After swiping his credit card, the dealership explained that his balance was now $0. However, he may receive still a bill from the liquid diagnostic lab.
Have a nice day and come again.
June 30, 2021
15 years
I’ve been with RTI for 15 years! Fifteen years. That is a long time to work for the same company in Silicon Valley.
As a thank you, the company gifts you an iPad. I didn’t want yet another generic tablet. I wanted it to be the device: the device which becomes my new personal machine for all things writing, reading, browsing and watching.
At first, my eye fell on the iPad Pro with its M1 hunky hunky processor. It is a fantastic machine, except for the iPadOS software. Most reviews I read want to load macOS on the machine, or advise you to buy a MacBook M1 Air. The iPad Pro is expensive.
I didn’t want another computer. I wanted something smaller, easier to take on an outing or a trip. I was ok with a more limited operating system. After all, the iPad does great for the tasks I wanted to use it for. I wanted a better writing station, better than my iPhone/Bluetooth keyboard/stand combo.
I therefor opted for the sky blue Wifi iPad Air with 256GB of storage. On day one, the device exceeds my expectations. It is beautiful, and light and small enough. I use it with a bluetooth keyboard I already had and a separate stand. I probably will switch to the Logitech keyboard and case in the future.
The only application I lacked thus far was an native WhatsApp app. Although I read that is in the works.
Some of the apps I use: Medium, Day One, Twitter, YouTube, Netflix, Disney+, Pocket, Dropbox, iA Writer, NY Times, Dashlane, NordVPN, Google Works applications, Google Photos, Chrome, Discord, Dr. Wolf Chess and LinkedIn.
June 26, 2021
LinkedIn, what am I doing wrong?
For the past year LinkedIn pings fall into two categories. The first group commends you on your work, your company, your skills, your writing only to go for the kill next and try to sell you something. The second group is more direct and pitches you candidates for the open reqs in the team in their first communication.
LinkedIn has become a nuisance rather than a benefit.
Where is the promise of professional networking without too many strings? What happened to peer discussion groups and expert panels? What happened to free learning on the Lynda platform?
Since the purchase by Microsoft, it appears the strategy is sales-all-the-time. Salesforce made a colossal mistake not to buy LinkedIn first. Imagine the power-combo.
Or I may be doing this LinkedIn thing all wrong.
June 20, 2021