And what fits to both the headline, and to my feelings about it is Shi‘s actual pick for her New Year’s song which she uploaded on the 3rd of February 2013 (her date of entry at Wikiloops), called “This time”:
What a wonderful song of my three friends from the ‘loops. I had this one on my first album on Wikiloops, without own contributions yet – and I’ve added “The cool cats from the loops – Hit singles” to the widgets area on the right of this page now so that you can find and download it. As always, thanks for reading, and for listening.
Today I made a test: I took both of the smart phones off of their chargers when I started work this morning, and placed them beside my workplace like this:
Smartphones ’21
These are, from left to right: the Apple iPhone SE (2020 model) which belongs to my employer, and the Google Pixel 4a phone which I “bought for one shilling” from my wife.
The test was: I wanted to see how much battery power was left after a full day of work, without using both devices. My expectation was that the Apple device with its A13 chip would win by quite some degree against the Google device with its Snapdragon chip.
And of course, “not using them” wasn’t exactly true – while the Apple device was silent, I heard the Pixel phone’s “Pling!” sound several times when someone sent me an email via GMX – don’t know if the display went on because I haven’t seen it, but I guess so (usually it does). The GMX app is also installed and configured on the iPhone, but notifications weren’t allowed on it. Another (unfair) advantage for Apple? I have no idea…
So after work – and I shut down my notebook after a bit more than nine and a half hours uptime including lunch break – I looked at both. Result: 93% battery left on the Apple, 99% on the Google phone.
Interesting. Obviously, Google has learnt how to let its Pixel phones doze (can hardly say ‘sleep’ when all of the time they’re in fact waiting for something to happen). Power management seems to be perfect on these. Would be interesting to compare it with Apple’s new A14 chip in the newer iPhone 12 – that one is the first 5nm CPU just like the M1 chip in Apple’s new “Silicon” machines… but as you can see, it’s not all just hardware…
We’ve had a bit of snow last fall, and I’ve written about that, but for this winter we now had the first one… just took a photo with +0.7 exposure to keep whites white, then adjusted the white balance in Gimp, and cropped it to 800×600 pixels so I could send it with mail. Now I also uploaded it to Flickr, from where I show it here again as usual:
First snow for 2021, Mörfelden Walldorf 2021
Also on Flickr, but from yesterday short before my lunch break: a photo of Tuna on the heated floor (and carpet):
Nothing better than a heated floor, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2021
Oh, and since I don’t have an own nice snow song, here’s one from “Südwestlicht”, from 2013, made entirely with Linux:
As always, thanks for viewing, reading, watching, and listening. Be well, and keep warm everyone… 🙂
We have an artificial hill which is about 5.5km by car from here, heading South-Southwest, see it on Google Maps here:
Aussichtspunkt Oberwaldberg on Google Maps
And as you can see, its official name is “Oberwaldberg”, tho everyone here just calls it “Müllberg”. It’s renaturated and surrounded by some nice lakes and fields, home of many birds again, so quite nice. Last time we went there it was kind of late and getting dark, so today I decided to walk around and on top of that hill again, taking my camera with the 25mm/1.4 “normal” lens. Here are some photos:
Our “Müllberg” from South-West, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2021
This is as close as you can get from an industrial area in the Southwest of the small hill, so this is where I parked and left the car. As you can see, I wasn’t alone but then again it wasn’t really crowded as well, I’ve met maybe half a dozen people during the whole walk around and on top of it.
Looking South, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2021
Here I’m looking South from the way you saw on the first photo, into the general direction of Darmstadt (we’re as close to Darmstadt as we are to Frankfurt, both are about 15km away in almost exact opposite directions). This is where the sun was during my walk which was a bit chilly at times…
Oberwaldsee, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2021
This is part of the Oberwaldsee, one of two lakes at the foot of Oberwaldberg. It’s nice, even in Winter.
Home, airport, and Taunus as seen from our “Müllberg”, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2021
This is the view back home from our Müllberg. We live in one of these higher buildings behind the second line of trees in the front. Behind our home and another forest and all the way to the left is the airport, and behind that are some smaller villages and then the mountain line of the Taunus which is North of Frankfurt.
So near and so far, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2021
This is the view from a second and slightly lower lookout, with the general direction about 286 degrees West-Northwest. I called this “So near and so far” because that is what you see, especially when you see the airplanes leaving.
According to the step counter of my mobile phone, I walked some 2.5km and about 4,000 steps.
… from a new and respected pianist, Bach, via Schubert, to being kind…
Yesterday – just by chance – I saw a few minutes of a music program in ARD Mediathek, and it’s also on Youtube. It’s about a young pianist called Víkingur Ólafsson who explains and plays Bach like no other, very impressive. Maybe I’ll put his CD onto my wish list… (and that link has an affiliate reference back to Wikiloops again).
Through the German Wikipedia page about him, linked above (English one is here), I learnt that he also has a Soundcloud account – and there I heard him together with Kristinn Sigmundsson perform “Gute Nacht” from Schubert’s “Winterreise”:
Very cool, and probably one of the most well-known musical pieces about unrequited love, just like in literature this would be Goethe’s “Werther”, or H.C. Andersen’s “Under the willow tree” (German *and* English versions are here).
This might all sound or read nicely from a warm home, but it all ends tragic, and there’s nothing romantic about winter, and/or freezing to death. So my thoughts went further on to those who don’t have a home, no matter the reasons.
And that made me think of “The Doctor” (Doctor Who, best played so far by Peter Capaldi in my opinion), and his imperative of “being kind”. It’s all the same story which fits this Christmas time which just went past with so many people thinking about their own problems and grief – please also think of the others. Share if you can, and/or at least be kind, that costs you nothing.
Oh my. This sounds like me preaching. But sometimes this is how I think, and how my thoughts jump from one thing to another, so please don’t be too harsh with me 🙂
Wishing you all a good time, and don’t forget to stay safe, and to take care. As always, thanks for reading.
P.S.: here’s a song which I just recommended to some of my colleagues. It’s from 2013, but in my opinion it also fits the time. Have to remember to tag it with “matteredToMe2020” in the ‘loops this evening:
… in a hospital in Bremen, Zuleikha was born. Don’t know if I can show you her picture (haven’t asked yet), but here are her birthday calendar, and our cat, both in black & white and with a simulated Kodak Tri-X film:
Birthday calendar, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2020
Tuna the cat on ZUleikha’s birthday, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2020
