Chris Siebenmann @cks@mastodon.social

I changed the front tire on my weekend bike today, and as usual it took me ages (over half an hour). Some of that was finding the leak (a slow leak along the tube seam) to be sure of it, but a lot of it was just that I am not fast. On the other hand, I am not fast partly because I don't have to do this very often.

Often, looking at my recorded heart rate during our club bike rides reminds me that all of those methods of estimating your maximum heart rate can be wildly off. Today provided an especially vivid illustration over a 20-minute section: https://ridewithgps.com/trips/71964217?highlight=2398-3685

If my age-based estimated max HR was at all accurate (especially the 220-age version), I would have exploded somewhere along that run. Instead I think I still had reserves.

My live upgrade from Fedora 33 to Fedora 34 was trouble-free (which is not always the case). My desktop audio even kept working through the Pulseaudio to Pipewire change, and now Pipewire's daemons are started for me.

(I always expect annoyance from Linux audio changes.)

In fact you don't need to use 'umask -S' to use symbolic modes with umask. I misread the manpage. In a shell supporting umask symbolic modes, 'umask -S' is just to print your current umask in symbolic form.

Today I learned about 'umask -S', which makes umask work the way it really should. You specify or get reported more or less the maximum permissions you want new files to have, not the permissions you don't want them to have (the approach of numeric umask).

(Not necessarily available in shells that aren't trying to be like the Bourne shell. But you're probably using a Bourne-like shell.)

Blog post: University computer accounts are often surprisingly complicated https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/tech/UniversityAccountsComplicated

(I was inspired to write about this partly because of @gnomon )

One day after my second vaccine shot, I have some clear reactions. My body very much wanted to be under all the blankets last night, and today I'm feeling kind of wiped out, headachy, and so on. But it's not horrible and hopefully I'll be back to full energy soon. I took a sick day (and I'm lucky to have that privilege).

(I've had the 'I want to be under all the blankets' reaction before, during the one time I had flu. This is much milder than that.)

I feel pretty relieved to have now received my second vaccine shot, given both the increasing circulation of the Delta variant and Ontario and Toronto's increasing reopening. Post-vaccination reactions remain to be seen.

As before I plan no changes in behavior now or in 14+ days. Everything stays as before until we all have the all-clear. I'm not impatient and wearing a mask isn't a burden (plus it still helps everyone in several ways).

In theory I like thunder and rain (when I don't have to be out in it, and especially when I can sit and watch it roll through).

In practice I'm currently very happy that I have a UPS, since we've now had at least two brief power glitches here.

My area of Toronto is currently growling with thunder, which is one part nice to hear and another part vaguely alarming (and also I have an important trip to make this afternoon).

It was nice to ride the weekend bike and feel like I'd never stopped, with all of my old reflexes working fine. I last rode it last August, and before that October of 2019, but I can still work the bar end shifters by reflex without having to look.

(The commuter has standard riser bars with hybrid style thumb shifters; the weekend bike has drop bars with bar end shifters, because it's theoretically a touring bike.)

Another bike ride today, down to Tommy Thompson Park and back home past Allen Gardens. I can tell I'm getting more enthused about biking (and more willing to believe it will really happen), because I got the nice weekend bike's front brake fixed up and rode it this time instead of the commuter.

That was a humbling bicycle ride. I very rarely overdo my riding so clearly. 62 km is clearly more than a bit excessive, which is not surprising after doing very little riding for more than a year. But it was a nice route and a nice ride.

https://ridewithgps.com/trips/69688583

(The public portion that does not show you where my home is, because I'm a bit irrationally twitchy about that..)

There's growling thunder rolling across Toronto today (but not much rain). I hope that people with good views are getting a nice show.

Surprise flat bike tire was a surprise (before I started riding). I remain terribly slow at changing my tire, although this time had extra bonus points for it being the rear wheel and not one but two metal spikes I had to use needle-nose pliers to extract.

Pulling out the bike stand instead of flipping the bike over might have been the wrong call. With a flipped-over bike, you can drop the replaced rear wheel into place with the help of gravity.

Today's realization: Laurie Anderson's work has a fair amount of similarity to rap, and it's generally accepted as at least art (and music). I knew the idea of 'real music' was a social construct, but this helps grind it in a bit more, especially since I like Anderson's work.

See eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvOoR8m0oms