Cercedilla Field Notes: Iberian Magpie

OMG. I was an early arival party for a winter weekend in Cercedilla (our little house is not winter proof and we have determined best to only go when sunny) and I was sitting on the front porch enjoying the sun going down (and its warmth because inside the house is low 50s) and suddenly I saw three iberian magpies in a leafless tree enjoying the sun as well. I pulled out my binoculars and was admiring them and suddenly there was one on every branch, then I realized there was a low hum of bird calls and there were like a 50 of them flying towards the setting sun!!!! Crazy cool!

Read More

Pebble Eric's call to action

Last friday I had an email from Eric Migicovsky (original founder of Pebble and founder of the new RePebble company announced in January) with an update and a call to action while we wait for a new iteration of the beloved watches (hopefully in time before my Pebble Time Steel passes away!). The call to action had small, medium, and big projects and I spent my weekend on two small projects: (1) pulling all my old Pebbles out and trying to get them to work and (2) compiling a watch face. Read on for the details!

Read More

Holiday Season 2024

So once again I have my shorn my rented tree of its pretty adornments and sparkily lights awaiting the nice university students from the Forestry School to pick it up and as always it seems too soon. But I complain too much as we get a full extra week here in Spain thanks to the blessed kings who arrive on Jan 6th, so I was able to resist this moment until a full halfway through January and enough complaining and lets review how the silly season went!

Read More

PowKiddy Delight

Sweet baby Jesus did not bring me my Powkiddy X55 for Christmas, but rather it was a self gift after Julio told me about his and introduced me to the world inexpensive of handheld console emulators. He pointed me to this you tube video (in spanish) that covers all the options available from 0-20 euros (!) that have form factors similar to the original Nintendo Gameboy up to devices that compete with Steam’s handheld consoles (400€ - 1000€). Let me repeat that: devices less than 20€. A hamburger, frys and a drink in most of the hamburger joints in Madrid will set you back more! So just out of absolute curiosity I had to get one experience this first hand.

Read More

Post Climate Change Debate Investigations

This week I had the luck to participate in a debate about climate change at work. For me it was a forum to promote the first of the “three R’s” (reuse) that Jack Johnson introduced to me but there were other ideas, and a lively debate was had! As one would hope, the collateral effect of getting together and exchanging and exploring new ideas is that interesting lines of exploration are raised to help clarify certain ideas. So read more for two doubts I had post debate and my investigations into them!

Read More

Sailfish OS

This week I had the opportunity to explore a new mobile device operating system, Sailfish OS, something that does not happen every day, so it was a special week!

Here is snapshot of my mobile OS journey up until now:

So read on for what drew me to Sailfish OS, how the installation process went, and my first impressions after a week of use!

Read More