Switzerland

Yesterday I tried playing with Migros SubitoGo and the experience was good. You scan the QR code for the shop as you enter and then you scan the products that you want to buy. I kept them in my hands until I got to the checkout counters.

Passabene

With Passabene you shop, you scan your products, and then you go to the cash machine, scan the shopping list to the device, and it charges you. It’s quite conventional and sometimes it asks for a double check from a cashier.

The most striking thing about a winter with little to no snow is that there is no noise. Normally ski lifts clank, people talk and there is a lot of noise

When there has been very little snow the ski lifts are turned off and the mountains are quiet. This is when you realise the impact of winter sports.

In summer you hear cowbells.

25,000 steps in a day.

Garmin allows you to select the number of steps you want to take in a single day, or let it be set automatically. For a year or two I allowed the goal to set. The result is a step goal that fluctuated from 12,000 steps per day to 15,000 steps or more. This was fine, because I ignored it.

A few days ago I decided to set it to a fixed ten thousand steps a day. Many will say that the 10,000 steps per day doesn’t matter, and I agree. I took 21,000 steps today so I overshot the mark by a little.

Magnolias in Nyon

I went for a walk and by the time it ended the sun had set. I walked with a flashlight in case but didn’t need it. Usually I would have gone for a walk earlier in the day.

Yesterday I tried running and walking in high winds. I have cycled and walked in high winds but I had not yet had the sensation of running in high wind and it is quite interesting. In cycling you feel that the wind pushes your bike to the side, and you counteract the wind.

With running in high wind I found that if I ran with the wind then my body behaved as a sail and I could feel the wind pushing me faster than usual. Of course the legs and cardiovascular system need to keep up. It’s when you turn perpendicular to the wind that it becomes interesting. As the feet lift the ground the wind pushes them laterally so that the right foot bangs into the left leg. I had to avoid tripping.

https://youtu.be/UwJuKemh4VE

A stormy Leman

Switzerland 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.

There is a good chance that this is an illusion, demonstrated in three ways. The first of these is the number and saturation of hospitals now, with many of them overloaded and in a situation of crisis. The second indicator that things are not fine is the increased mortality for years, at this point. The third indicator is that people with COVID compromised immune systems might have stopped testing positive for COVID but there is a lag between when someone stops testing positive for COVID and when their immune system has fully recovered from the disease, able to combat other illnesses that would otherwise have little or no effect.