Continuing a short series on things I've learned on my Summer 2023 trip to Iceland, Norway, Amsterdam & Paris

Things I’ve learned this summer 2023 trip: # 4 - TRAVEL APPS

CITYMAPPER is the best app I’ve ever had for getting around in an unknown city. I’m surprised they don’t charge for it. It makes it stupid easy to figure out the best way to get from here to there within a city. It’s also easy to say: hey, I want to go by bus, not the fastest way like the metro so I can see more things on the trip. Or you can get the options that minimize the walk (because rain, or temperature, or sore feet or whatever). I used it a bit in Reykjavik & Oslo, and a bunch in Amsterdam & Paris. It’s going to be a permanent part of my travel toolkit.   

I bought & loaded my 24hour Amsterdam transit pass on my phone through their app (which I've already erased). Worked like a champ & I didn't have to go anywhere special to get it. In Paris I didn't use an app, I used the Navigo Easy+ transit card - still have 5 rides loaded on it. I also loaded the DC Metro app onto my phone and used it to get to Dulles, and expect to use  it going forward. The DC metro goes all the way to the Dulles terminal now. Yay. But I also got a smartTrip transit card for my kid, because I wasn't up to figuring out how/if you could pay for two people with the app - I had a plane to catch! 

There is this PASSPORT app that I recorded my passport info into. I didn't really use it, but it was great piece of mind. 

I know a lot of people use currency conversion apps. I do not. The euro being about parity with the dollar, and the Norwiegan krone being about a dime made the math trival to do in ones head.

Other APPS that I used A BUNCH were not strictly travel apps. WhatsApp was my go-to for messaging as you just need wifi for it to work. I've started using Wallet linked to my credit card to pay for things. I think I only got my credit card out twice, and paid cash three or four time. I only encountered one place the entire trip that didn't take credit card - even that park bathroom that charged 2euros took credit card. Which reminds me, I should pay my credit card bill. 

Marriott has its BONVOY app, which claims you can use your phone as a door key. FINALLY. I've been requesting something like this since 2004. I'm a freaking platinum traveler, in your hotels all the time. STOP GIVING me room keys. STOP making me stand in line to get them. Give me something that works across properties, or let me use something I have already like my phone or drivers licence. .. Anyway, it didn't work. The two properties I stayed at this trip didn't have phone-keys implemented yet. So I had to get keycards from the desk after standing in line. But at least they are working on it! Also, I could check into my room the night before via the app and let them know I'd be early. So even though it wasn't checkin time, I got access to my rooms early afternoon.

Finally, there is this app called TOO GOOD TO GO that I was surprised to see in both Oslo and Paris (I didn't check elsewhere). If you are an urban dweller and flexible, I *highly recommend* you check it out. The premise is that grocery stores/resturants will offload unbought food at pennies on the dollar. But you have to be available to get it at weird times and you never know exactly what you will get. I wish it was available in my area.

Are you plagued by the feeling that everyone used to be nicer?

There’s some work by a guy named Richard Eibach on how people think the world has gotten more dangerous. And he finds that people believe this. And the people who believe this, especially, are parents. And when you ask those parents “When did the world become more dangerous?,” you get a date that is curiously close to the date of the birth of their first child.

The obvious implication being that nothing about the world changed. It was your worldview that changed. And now you have to, you know, protect this fragile life—and so you are much more attuned to the dangers of the world. That’s why you think there’s more of them.

Hm.  September 2001.  Curious, indeed.  But a pyschological illusion, right?

100 feet down in a former copper mine. Which is also a former prison. The past is a terrible place, never go there. Old Newgate Prison is worth a visit, though. The curation of the place... nowadays... has tipped heavily in the direction of rethinking incarceration. Also: nice vein of malachite in there.

Speaking of the past, thanks to U. and L. for bringing some nasty bugs to my attention. These bugs affected the process of accepting an invitation. Most were blatant, which is not so bad, because it was easy for L. to spot them and for me to fix them.

But the last one makes me kick myself: for *coughs* some time now, when accepting an invite, the dialog box giving you a chance to give a "friends" key to the person who invited you just didn't work properly. This is fixed, and will hopefully make it just that little bit easier for newcomers to communicate with the person who invited them in the first place.

Thankfully there was no issue in the opposite direction.

Starting a short series on things I've learned on my Summer 2023 trip to Iceland, Norway, Amsterdam & Paris

Things I’ve learned this summer 2023 trip: # 2 - HEALTH INFO

Coffee made without a paper filter may contribute to high cholesterol. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9240930/ Though google indicates research is ongoing and more results are filtering (hah) in.

Here, a dangerous café in a Paris café

And a dangerous coffee in a Scandinavian airport cafe, side of hot chocolate

And a non-dangerous coffee hidden is a chipper arty mug. (Artist: Marianne Aulie)

I started a new video channel for the educational drawing videos.

For those interested in such things, the channel is here:

(And there's one video up as an 'introduction' to Yours Truly.)

Starting a short series on things I've learned on my Summer 2023 trip to Iceland, Norway, Amsterdam & Paris

Things I’ve learned this summer 2023 trip: # 1 - NORWAY BITS

• There are white snails in Oslo. Perhaps once cultivated by monks. You can eat them. (I did not).

• There is a berry called a Sea Buckthorn. Apparently popular in many cultures but I’d never heard/seen it before. I tasted it as an ice cream flavor, and it was tasty - slight citrus, bright berry tasting, just a bit sweet. 
• There is a delicious traditional Norwegian dish called Finnbiff - kind of a reindeer stroganoff served with mashed potatoes, garnished with cranberry or lingonberry sauce. It’s reason enough in and of itself to go to Norway. Especially if you can find a kind northern Norwegian to make it for you.

• Vigeland was a dude who sculpted in the 1920-40s and you should go checkout his park. It's full of neo-romantic style sculpture - like 100s of pieces. https://www.visitoslo.com/en/product/?TLp=181601  Plus he made wonderful iron art deco gates and fencing and lights. There’s a good reason this is a top tourist spot in Oslo. Recommended. I’d have stayed longer, or gone back, but some things aren’t possible with group travel. Plus my kid, as usual, was bored.

• Some of those large boulders you see in the mountain fields were trolls at one point, before the sun petrified them.
• <contributed by my kid> Shoes are typically removed when entering Norwegian homes.
• Aperol Spritz is a drink and it will be added to my regular rotation.

Just a quick update on my trip to Norway. There is a lot to tell of course; this is just a tidbit.

I've been in Norway for a week, staying outside Oslo with a generous friend who has organized a lovely week of site seeing. Mountains, waterfalls, woods, historic buildings, short hikes, visiting with her family, eating and drinking. It's been a lovely time. My daughter is with me, who would not agree. She's bored with all the adults doing things she finds dull and she misses her home/friends in Delaware. "Sheez mom, do I really have to look at another old church. It's not very interesting to me." Ah well, hope she learns to appreciate the experience when she is older. 

Today we are going into Oslo to see a art exhibit (and shop). But the highlight of this day will be dinner. One of the housemates is from a northern fishing village and has offered to cook up a traditional Norwegian dish -- with Reindeer meat. 

The other highlight of Oslo is Vigeland Park. He was a sculptor the 1910-40s and the park is full of his works and augmented with art deco gates and fencing and the like. There is a reason it is the most popular attraction in Norway. 

Got to run be a tourist now. More later (maybe)

Is OnePo fully accessible? Um... yeah almost certainly not, because I haven't had it tested rigorously for that, nor have I consulted anyone with a disability about their actual experiences. Those steps would be good to take.

One bit of accessibility progress though: alternative text for images.

Adding an alt text field for images in posts was easy-peasy. Adding this to images in comments was an absolute bear, because of the lil' shortcut pattern I had before: tapping the image button on a comment immediately prompted you for an image file, and then immediately uploaded it, and you were done!

This was a nice pattern in a lot of ways, very light and breezy, but also totally brittle: the moment you wanted to add alt text it didn't work for us at all.

So I reworked the image comment editor, and now there is an alt text field beneath an "Upload Image" button, all proper-like.

There's another win today though: image uploads should be considerably faster, especially over slow links, and especially when the original file is large. That's because images are now resized on your device before they are uploaded.

It's true that this puts a slightly greater burden on the local device, but in practice it's a device every web browser has been ferociously optimized to handle, and most likely handles in dedicated hardware. That's because every website is crammed to the gills with images that don't precisely match the size of your screen. So asking your device to do this is reasonable, and it significantly reduces the workload for the server.

"Uh... yeah Tom, that workload must be awful with somebody posting once every hour or so!" Yeah, true, but I still get to learn useful things about doing this kind of stuff at scale, even if scale hasn't really happened here.

Anyway, here's Wonderwall. Photo-comment away, and let me know if anything breaks!

P.S. Hovering the mouse etc. will not display the "alt text." That's because it is truly set up as alternative text (e.g. the "alt" attribute) for accessibility purposes, and regular browsers intentionally don't display it by default. That "text on hover" thing you may be thinking of is the "title" attribute, and describing an image effectively for those who can't see it isn't really the same use case.

Another one I'll never get to.

Tag line for a comic series. Or a book. Or something.

"Every man must face his demons, but in this case, they're real."

It's a bit weird, because I do NOT want to imply that non physical demons are any less real, but I was trying to think of a simple, snappy tagline. 

The idea is that his internal problems create / spawn tangible monsterous creatures. Perhaps based on the 7 Deadly Sins.

So he has to fight them on two battlefields - in his mind and with his body. 

Seems like it could be a lot of fun. 

Maybe I'll do some daydreaming / sketch / concept work on it if I get some time. 

Okay, y'all are probably sick of seeing that dragon's head at this point, but it kinda started something for me.

I've been really enjoying this super simple (technically speaking) technique. I do a very fast, rough 'pencil sketch', create a new layer, and just use a single ink brush which varies widely in line weight based on pressure applied to the stylus.

What that does: It makes it really easy for me to 'intentionally make mistakes'. Or as Bob Ross would say: "Happy little accidents." That, in turn, creates a kind of bold detail work. Lots of visual texture where my stuff is usually so very steryl in its cleanliness.

Also, these look like they would make for amazing stickers - which are also available on the site.

So I'm going to do some more. I'm trying to stick primarily to 'the heads of creatures of known types'. Dragon, bugbear, and I cheated a little with the goblin.

What kind of creature would you like to see next? Bonus if it's a type that live a VERY long time so I can use lots of lines to make it look 'grizzled and old'.