Ten Names
The Paris Olympic Games came to a close last night. Tom Cruise completed his rappel-motorbike-skydive mission to pass on the flag to Los Angeles 2028. The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Snoop and Dr. Dre double-underlined how LA 2028 is swapping out fine European artistry for Hollywood bling. BAM!
Surprisingly, I was quite invested in these games and caught more than a few disciplines. Here’s a list of the folks which defined the Olympics Games of Paris for me:
- Remco Evenepoel - double gold. Time trial and road cycling.
- Femke Bol - an unbelievable strong final 100 meter sprint
- Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone - grace and speed beyond belief.
- Imane Khelif - politics is never far away from the games.
- Bashir Abdi - marathon silver with a smile.
- Steph Curry - Chef Curry whipped up an amazing final serving, Warrior style, to bring home yet another Men’s Basketball gold.
- Kristen Faulkner - grit and stamina on the bike. Riding to win, she did.
- Snoop - give that man a gold medal. Authentic commentary.
- Celine - what an aria from the Eiffel Tower to end the opening ceremony
- Thomas Jolly - artistic director of the Opening Ceremony had me glued to the television. It was surprising, innovative, and it worked.
August 12, 2024
Google Docs Private View - Highlight and Take Notes, Privately
Far too often, Google Docs creates more work for us than needed. I’ve previously written about how we use Google Docs for collaboration is all wrong. By granting editor or commenting rights to others, we opened the door to endless side discussions and wordsmithing.
I’ve adopted the practice to first read the document in its entirety before commenting. It forces me to focus on the most important feedback and fight the urge to add comments as I read the document.
Yet, how do you remember the notes you wanted to add when you reach the end of a document?
Currently, I download the Google Doc as a PDF. I then highlight and add notes to the PDF.
Yet, this practice isn’t the most productive and hardly streamlined. Hence, the request for a new mode: Private View.
Private View is similar to FilterView in Google Sheets, where you can create a filter of the data, just for your eyes. The filtered data view is not visible to others.
Applied to Google Docs, Private View allows you to highlight sections, add private notes, and add private tasks. All these edits are only visible to you. You can later on convert the notes to public or shared comments, and export highlights and notes.
This mode mimics digitally what many of us, editors and reviewers included, do every day when handed a print copy of a paper.
Most importantly, the hope is that Private View will reduce the work for the original author.
July 22, 2024
First Triathlon
July 14th, 2024. The French national holiday. I completed my first triathlon: the Tri for Fun Sprint Triathlon at Rancho Seco in Herald, CA - 750 meters swimming, 16 miles cycling and 5K running.
After completing the AIDS LifeCycle (ALC) ride in 2023, I had been looking for a new goal.
I signed up to be a Training Ride Leader (TRL) for my ALC team. This meant often that I was sweeping the ride and supporting the new, yet slow, riders. I wasn’t pushing myself.
The real workouts were now happening in the gym. I joined a new gym in November. I lifted weights, completed HIT classes, and I started to swim. Nothing gave me as much energy as a 5:30am swim in the outdoor pool. The idea for a triathlon hadn’t hatched yet. As I still was experiencing some plantar fasciitis in my left foot, I wasn’t running.
Fast forward to the spring. The ride around Lake Tahoe in May was my first big goal. So what’s next? I wasn’t riding ALC this year. I started dreaming of doing a triathlon. My swim workouts became more deliberate. I bought new running shoes and started short runs. And in June I bit the bullet and signed up.
The Tri for Fun was indeed a lot of fun. It went by in a heartbeat. I felt great and never like I was suffering. That doesn’t mean it was easy either.
Swimming in open water was harder than I thought. Not that there were waves. I bumped quite a few times into others and often got of course to the buoy. I never felt I was in my regular and steady swim rhythm. I exited the water towards the back of my age bracket.
Perhaps because it was a race and my first tri, my breath and heart rate showed it. Only by cycle 5, did I feel I could relax a little, and only for a short while. Then I got back in overdrive. It is surely something to work on in future races.
Cycling was great. The course had rolling hills. I could catch up to many ahead of me. It is my strongest event.
The run went much better than I expected. It was a dirt road with rolling hills. You had to push yourself a bit. You also had to watch out for rocks and when crossing cattle gates. I had prepared a great motivational Apple Music playlist that got me into the zone. Rocky, Eminem, Darube.
My transitions were smooth. Having a tri suit makes them easy. I didn’t need a wet suite as this lake was warm.
What’s next? I had a 100 mile ride early August. I am toying with the idea of a half marathon in October, as I won’t have too much time cycling and swimming in September and October. If I want to do an Olympic-distance triathlon, I will need to be more deliberate about my training. We’ll figure out the next goals in August.
July 14, 2024
healthyLifestyle
Gravel Stages Are Here to Stay in the Tour De France
Today, the riders in the Tour de France completed the dreaded stage 9, the gravel stage with 14 gravel sections.
The gravel, cobblestone, and cyclocross specialists were ready. The rest were fearful. GC contenders not called Tadej were praying not to lose time.
It turned out to be a wonderful spectacle, an epic battle, and feast for the eyes.
Gravel stages are here to stay. They bring spectacle without the horrendous and tour-ending crashes of the cobblestone stages. Also, Lady Luck plays less of a factor with fewer mechanical problems. So, yeah for gravel and nay for Roubaix.
Image Source: Tour de France website
July 7, 2024
cycling
Non-Alcoholic Beers Are on the Rise
My Belgian family may disown me for writing about and especially drinking non-alcoholic brews.
I started drinking them to get under my ideal fighting (read: cycling) weight. I’ve been quite surprised by the taste and their availability.
It is no surprise that breweries are looking for new growth opportunities. THC is kicking their bud.
Data: Caulkins, 2024, “Changes in self-reported cannabis use in the United States from 1979 to 2022”
Here’s a ranked list of my favorite brands:
- Go Brewing is an exciting company with many great tasing brews.
- Lagunitas IPNA is well balanced and very close to a regular IPA. It is more and more available in restaurants.
- Sierra Nevada Trailpass
- Heineken Zero is refreshing and widely available in restaurants and bars. It is my safe bet.
- Guinness Zero tastes amazing, and quite similar to the original.
- Best Day Brewing
- Bravus Brewing — Non-Alcoholic Golden Light
- Blue Moon Non Alcoholic is too sweet, yet drinks very easy.
- Athletic Brewing is omni-present. You can find it at most supermarkets. Yet, Athletic Brewing tends to be harsh on my stomach.
PS - If any of these breweries need a little marketing help, hit me up. I’ve got a script ready for a funny and catchy commercial, appealing to the athletic demographic and rooted in an experience after our weekly training rides.
June 30, 2024
Why Georgia Is My Default Font
You’ve likely seen the funny Instagram reels of the conversing fonts. Which font can rival Arial for the throne of Default?
My font choice, when available, is Georgia.
Georgia is an elegant serif font, designed for the web. It makes hard to read online documents legible, even when reduced to a small font size. It accomplishes this with a heavier weight, making it an ideal candidate for mobile-responsive design.
Regardless, it is not easy to get buy-in for a font change and challenge Arial for the default font.
June 30, 2024
Optimistic Urgency Shapes Reality
In a recent write up to my team, I put forward that we define our plans too early. We don’t understand well what we set out to achieve. Therefore we are behind, while we are still in the starting blocks. I argued for a requirements phase before we make estimates and commit to a plan.
There is also a contrarian view to focusing on scope, as scope impacts what we accomplish. One way to put this is that people are good at metaphorical limbo. No matter where we set the bar, people aim for the bar. Folks are great at being just under the bar, or believe they will get under the bar. Simply introducing scope can make one move slower.
Doing things as fast as possible, without regard for the scope, is the only antidote against the Limbo Effect. Optimism is another less good antidote, and if you are deeply optimistic, you can use it to consistently limbo under your goals, and over time, warp reality.
You likely need both: a scoop of requirements exploration and a scoop of optimistic urgency. Optimism shapes reality. Steve Jobs was known for his reality distortion field.
I’ve learned over the years that when you have really good people you don’t have to baby them. By expecting them to do great things, you can get them to do great things. - SJ
June 28, 2024
Spoon-Feeding Change
When a new idea or change is not accepted, it is frequently due to a communication failure. Not informing folks is an obvious problem. However, introducing too much all at once can be equally problematic.
I have been thinking about this problem for a while. Here’s my summary of the problem, the tenets, and the recommended solution. Please provide your comments before we roll this out to the rest of the team.
That is too much information up front. You are pedaling at 30 mph, whereas the team is only gearing up to go on a bicycle ride. The result is often chaos. Some folks are disagreeing on the original problem description. Others don’t like the solution. Others may have a different vision of where we should be going and don’t even think this is a problem. You are off to series of frustrating meetings and discussions.
Instead, try spoon-feeding the change. Break it into pieces over different discussions, and get buy-in before you go to the next step.
Agree on the problem
Here’s a problem I observe. Do you agree? Did I capture the problem correctly? Do you agree with the stated assumptions (aka tenets)? Do you agree that it is important to tackle this problem now? Who should be involved in finding a solution to this problem?
At this point, you end up with a crisp description of the problem and its tenets.
When there is agreement on solving the problem, you can open the door to discussing areas that can help find the solution. We aren’t proposing a solution yet. We’re looking for ideas or degrees of freedom that will allow us to craft a solution offline.
Is it useful to talk to Phoebe’s team? What if we change the customer return policy? Do we need this process? Do we have the budget to hire a contractor?
If there is no agreement on the problem, it is possible we need to take a step back and discuss the vision and priorities.
Do you agree that the top priority is blah, and that we are willing to give up blah to achieve it? Considering the company objectives, why do you think this is a problem to tackle?
For example, if the priority is to ship a new feature fast, then hardening the code base, and solving the problem of too many false positives from static analysis, isn’t something we should be focussing on.
Now, end the discussion and go work on a proposed solution.
Agree on the solution The debate on how to solve the problem will be more focused when we are all trying to solve the same problem. You may need to remind folks from of the agreed problem and assumptions, as you are discussing solutions.
That’s nice, but that’s not the problem we are solving.
Based upon your comment, do you think assumption 2 is not longer true?
Agree on the roll out plan Now that you have allies on the change, the roll out will be easier as well.
By going slower, you will achieve change faster.
June 14, 2024
Synching Fitness Apps Is Complicated
I have an Apple Watch 4, use Apple Fitness, track my rides on a Garmin Edge 840 cycle computer, have a Fitbit scale, and am a Strava premium subscriber. In other words, I am balancing with one foot in the Apple ecosystem, one foot in Garmin land, one hand in the Stravasphere, and one thumb planted in Google-Fitbit soil. How does one make it all synchronize?
That question doesn’t come with an easy answer for a variety of reasons. Strava can import Garmin but not the other way around. There are multiple formats (.fit, .tcx, .gpx, .csv) at play. You want to be careful with circular synchronizations. In nerd lingo, you need Fitness Spanning Tree.
Using a third-party iOS app, RunGap, I have been able to set up the following scheme:
- I connect both Apple Health (source) and Garmin Connect (destination) to RunGap. This requires a $9.99/year subscription. I set it up to start synchronizing starting today (see advanced settings). I also enable the Fake Garmin Device setting (see this video for details).
- I connected Garmin and Strava, such that Garmin automatically pushes new workouts to Strava. This means that my cycle computer can synchronize to Strava without the need to running RunGap.
The result is such that all my workouts are available in Strava and in Garmin Connect. The data may be off a bit due to different algorithms to connect the gps points. The different step count is a mystery to me. Because it is all in the same ballpark, it is good enough for me.
An alternative setup is to make RunGap the synchronization hub for all workouts, as opposed to Apple Health — via Run Gap –> to Garmin Connect, and from Garmin automatically to Strava.
A disadvantage of this set up is that it requires some manual steps.
May 28, 2024
Mount Hamilton
It has been over 25 years since I cycled up Mount Hamilton in San Jose. I previously completed it two or three times, on a heavy bicycle, and with much younger and stronger legs.
Yesterday, I started before 8am on the climb. Riding up in the fog and drizzle was pleasant and cool. This is a climb in three parts: first you climb to Joseph Grant valley, then there is a short climb to the CalFire station and bridge, before hitting the final 10 miles climb to Lick Observatory.
37 miles - 4854 ft climbing - under 4 hours
With the annual ride around Lake Tahoe last weekend and the climb to Mount Hamilton yesterday, I completed two big goals for this year.
May 28, 2024
cycling
healthyLifestyle