Sunday Endorsement – 31.05.2020

May 31, 2020
5 min read

📱 Tot Pocket

I was very skeptical at first. I mean, who wouldn’t be – €21.99 for a very limited note taking app. But after much consideration and keeping in mind the possibility to refund (yay Europe) I decided to give it a try. I’ve been trying to find an easy to use note app for a long time and nothing could come close to what I wanted. Notes.app was where I kept all my notes and didn’t feel like simple jotting app, I’ve tried Bear for a year, but it just replaced Notes and I never was a Markdown fan, I wanted something with rich text support. Drafts came close, but I always felt overwhelmed by it and after a week there would be tens of notes which I couldn’t remember what they were about.

Tot is light, colorful (it even changes the color of keyboard to match the dot and what surprised me most – even 3rd party keyboards get colored). I didn’t like icon at first, but recently they’ve added Mobius, which is now my favorite. I use all but one dots for something already and love it.

One disclaimer I have to add – I’ve had a data loss with the app. Just yesterday I was walking around town, listening to the audiobook and adding some notes, including citations I’ve transcribed myself. When I came home and opened an app – there was nothing. Just one word I’ve put as a placeholder when I created the note. And now I can’t shake the feeling of distrust. I hope it was a one time thing, but I’m not sure when I will be able to trust the application fully again.

I can’t recommend an app costing €21.99 to everyone, but if you look at screenshots and read the description you will know if the app is right for you. It is for me.

đź“ş Drive To Survive – Season 2

“Netflix are a bunch of cunts, aren’t they? I would love for them to play that.”

At the beginning of the season two they immediately let you know – this time it’s bigger, we have Mercedes and Ferrari now, but that somehow ruins it a bit. It became more pristine. The most controversial things were mostly when drivers and principals mentioned the documentary or Netflix.

But I still would recommend watching it. And I feel like it is much more interesting to those who have never watched F1, because otherwise you would already know what happened.

One additional note – I was the victim of advertising. After watching the show I went for a walk and had such a strong desire for a Red Bull I went to the store and bought one. Marketing works.

đź“ś Stratechery – The Google Squeeze

Half a year old article, but still very interesting. I never though how much advertising there is on Google. The screenshot which shows the results, where you have to scroll 3 pages in order to get to the organic results is worth the read alone.

I’ve compared the article with my own usage and it is the same in some instances and completely different in others. I hate the hotel module of Google. It always feels like some shitty websites want to give you a very bad deal. When I’m looking for a hotel I always go to booking.com. Always. And, as it turns out, that’s what they’ve tried to do – incentivize people to go straight to them. I guess it works.

⌚️ Pride California Watch Face

With the most recent update of the Apple Watch there are a couple of new Pride watch faces. One of them is California with Pride colors. It is my favorite watch face right now. I’ve been meaning to write about watch faces and how they all are bad for some reason or other. There are customizations, but it always feels like there could be more. But in terms of look – this one is just amazing.

One note – the process was a bit cumbersome. I had newest update on my Apple Watch, but new colors weren’t there. I updated my iPhone to iOS 13.5 and could choose a new California color, but it wouldn’t show up on my Watch. Only after restarting the watch did it work.

đź“š Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight

I’ve laughed a couple of times while listening to the book. It is probably the best memoir by a businessman I have ever read. It is more about motivation and drive and less about the decisions themselves. I’m sure that in order to build such a monumental company there have to be more controversial stories, but this book is not the place for them.

Ending is just beautiful. The book itself is very personal, but ending takes it to the new level. I didn’t want for it to end. One of the strongest recommendations I can give. Everyone should read it.

Running gear

June 10, 2014
3 min read

I guess, you probably can just go out and run, bet where is the fun? So during couple of months I’ve been running, I’ve acquired couple of things to help me with that activity. 

Shoes

This was the first thing I’ve bought after I’ve decided to pursue running. I’ve heard and read a lot about importance of good running shoes and couple of years ago I had problems with some shoes. I’ve got lucky, when I went to the store there was a sale on those Nike Pegasus running shoes. Beautiful and extremely comfortable. Friend of mine was saying how much better it was running at stadium and not on the roads. Finally I’ve decided to try it and didn’t notice ,much of a difference. Not being an expert, I totally give all the credit to my shoes. 

Clothes

Couple of Nike running T-shirts and shorts, also Nike, which one can call an overkill, but there was time when I had to motivate myself to go out and exercise and buying clothes was my first choice. It worked, knowing that I had these pretty expensive clothes motivated me to go running. Can’t say anything bad about them, comfortable even after more than an hour of running, I had some problems with regular T-shirts as they were not very comfortable for longer runs.

HRM + Watch

I’ve ordered Timex IronMan T5K214, just to have some more comparison information, I’ve used it only two times since it arrived, so can’t say much, but it’s fun to watch HR during the run.

Fitbit

It’s just always on me. When I first bought it, it didn’t change my activity. I’ve just tracked it and didn’t change anything in my lifestyle to improve the results. Only 2k steps a day? Meh, who cares? But then I’ve had a week with 6 days over 15k. After that I try to meet my goal every day, even if it means wandering around town with no reason.

Phone

I take phone with me on all the runs. I’ve wrote about how I choose what to run to. I have Pocket Casts and Spotify ready for my run. Also I track all my activities with RunKeeper. I’ve paid to become Elite user, mostly to support the service, but it does offer couple of useful features.

Headphones

In one week both my iPhone and HTC headphones died during the run. I’ve decided to buy something cheap, but at the store I saw Sennheiser CX 685 headphones on sale. They are designed for active use. It’s tricky to buy such headphones as you can’t try them beforehand and because of not traditional design I can imagine people having problems. Fortunately I didn’t have any, they fit perfectly and don’t drop out of ears. So far the longest run with them was hour and 5 minutes and they were fine during all the run.

How I went from hating running to my first 10k

May 5, 2014
3 min read

I’ve been putting off writing this post for a week now, finally got to it!

For almost all of my life I was overweight and running was hard for me. I didn’t like doing things for the sake of it, like running, jumping etc., but I loved playing football, volley and other sports. At school we had to run some short distances every year, I had no problem doing that, but then there was 3600m. I couldn’t do it. Later, about 3 years ago, my weight peaked at 120kg, it was hard even thinking about running, I’ve tried once, ran about 500m and walked back home, I’ve bought a treadmill and was walking/running at home for 30 minutes couple times a week at best. Then I lost about 20kg and for 2-3 years my weight was at about 95 kilo mark. I tried running couple of times and could do 1-1.5k, but never loved doing it and there was no progress.

In the end of last year I started to gain weight, on 08.01.2014 it got to 103 kilos and so I’ve decided to lose some of it, in about a month I’ve lost 10 kilos and decided to start running. I’ve got Fitbit, Runkeeper, really nice Nike Pegasus running shoes and was ready to go! My first run was 2.28km with average pace of 7:02, it felt great and I could see, just by losing weight I could run more. This time I was motivated to run and, most importantly, I’ve enjoyed it. 

In another month I’ve lost additional 8 kilos and so my weight got to 85-86, progress with running was not big, but I could definitely see it and feel it. In exactly a month from my first run I’ve run 5.1km with an average pace of 6:21. It was the longest run in my whole life, the feeling was great!

Then I’ve got couple of colds, so I couldn’t run, but when I did, I’ve got the distance of about 6-7km. The week before my record I barely managed 6km and whole week didn’t have any physical activity.

When I started this particular run, I wished I could do 6km again and after about 3km I was pretty sure that was my limit for the day. After next 2km I was almost dying, but decided to try to beat my own record of 7km and so I continued to run and this “almost dying” feeling was there until 10km, it didn’t get any worse, it just was the same feeling. When I saw 10km on the screen I’ve jumped, I was very happy! It was unbelievable.

Was thinking how to end this story and the only thing I can say, is some cheesy thing, like “you are capable of anything, just go and try!”. But it really is true, you just have to believe you can do it.