I’ve been wrestling with whether to keep Strava around. A few months back, I cancelled my subscription because the premium features weren’t doing much for me anymore. The detailed analytics and training plans looked impressive, but I found myself barely glancing at them. These days, I’m really just using the free version to scroll through what my friends are doing—catching up on their weekend long runs or seeing who’s finished a big race.
Here’s where I get stuck: that connection with friends actually does matter to me. There’s something genuinely motivating about seeing someone crush a hilly route or finally hit a personal best they’ve been chasing. It’s a different kind of social network, one that feels less angry than most. But I’ve been trying to pare down the number of apps and platforms I’m juggling. Each one demands a little piece of my attention, a login to remember, another feed to check. It adds up to a kind of low-grade mental clutter.
So I’m left weighing this pretty straightforward trade-off: the value of staying connected to a community of people I actually care about versus my desire to simplify and reduce the digital noise in my life. Part of me thinks I should just reach out to these friends directly, maybe text them about their workouts or plan to run together. But I know myself well enough to admit that probably won’t happen with the same regularity. Strava makes it effortless, almost ambient. The question is whether that ease is worth keeping one more app in the rotation, or if this is exactly the kind of passive engagement I should be trying to eliminate.
Another, small, consideration is that Strava also ended up being an aggregator of my data across apps and devices. So, I have records of my workouts all the way back to 2013 in there. Realistically, though, my running paces from a decade ago are irrelevant to today and, mostly, just a sad reminder of when I was faster.
Strava isn’t helping themselves with their overly aggressive attempts to get me to sign back up for a subscription either. The pestering is annoying.
For now, I’ve set the default workout visibility to “hidden”, so no one else can see them. I’ll keep the app in the background, importing current workouts, and see how I feel after ignoring it for a month. One less reason to be looking at my phone has to be good.
Although fascinating to watch, I really haven’t had much use for AI agents. We aren’t allowed to use them at work (beyond some basic Copilot stuff), where it might sometimes be useful, and I try to spend as much time as possible away from computers and screens outside of work.
That said, I did have a genuinely useful experience with Siri AI recently that, seems to me, follows through on some of the promise of these technologies for something relatively mundane, though annoying.
The setup is that we had a kitchen faucet fail and I wanted to make a warranty claim for its replacement. There was some earlier back and forth with the manufacturer, they’d sent me a replacement part, and now it seemed clear that the whole faucet needed to be replaced.
I asked Siri to draft an email to the manufacturer requesting the replacement. It tracked down the right email address from the website and drafted an email that succinctly outlined the problem and politely requested the replacement. This included finding and referencing the earlier claim number, noting the date that the earlier claim was made, and (via my calendar) when the authorized plumber had replaced the part.
I quickly looked the email over and then sent it along. Within a day, the manufacturer replied to say they had shipped the replacement.
This isn’t solving Navier-Stokes or writing up a thought piece for me. Rather, this is helping me quickly solve an actual problem, based on my own personal context. Exactly what Siri is supposed to do! And, that’s all I really want.
Saddened to hear about the passing of Patrick Stewart. A brilliant actor and a genuinely wonderful human being. Make it so, one last time.
Box of tea to keep us going 🫖
🔗 DC Rainmaker has a good description of the new Zwift Plus. Some intriguing additions that I don’t think I’ll use. 🚴
I packed my work clothes in the dark this morning and only now realize that the shirt and pants aren’t even close to matching
My morning bike commute is getting cold and dark
Finished reading: The daughters’ war by Christopher Buehlman is an amazing story about a terrible world📚
🎵 Song of the week for my daughter —
My Moon My Man by Feist from The Reminder. A fun song from a great Canadian artist
🗳️ Voted for the municipal elections. Although I’m not particularly excited by any of the candidates, still important to make a choice
Finished reading: Breaking Free of Neoliberalism: Canada’s Challenge by Alex Himelfarb is a fascinating exploration of neoliberalism: what it is, how it has gone wrong, and some alternatives. I can see some glimmers of hope with discussions of universal basic income and a return to government ownership. Many potential pitfalls though 📚
Finished reading: Look to Windward by Iain M. Banks is a great story about revenge, regret, and forgiveness with a dazzling sci-fi background 📚
Albertans sent a strong message to Edmonton, Ottawa, and the entire world last night; they’re ready to put this incredibly embarrassing chapter in our shared political history to an end.
I’m glad this was such a strong result. This was very much a waste of time and effort, when we have much more important things to take care of
