First, apologies for the audio quality (low volume) on my side of the discussion.

In this podcast, Jon Westfall and I discuss:

1. Microsoft BUILD: Linux GUI Apps Coming to Windows 10
2. Krita is a professional FREE and open source painting program. It is made by artists that want to see affordable art tools for everyone.: For Linux, MacOS, Windows
3. Still no notification about moving music from Google Play Music to YouTube Music. But, I was notified about moving this podcast to the new Google Podcast Manager
4. Jon’s been buying some Fitness gizmos and they will be arriving in the next few weeks. Let’s talk about what they are, and then over the next few weeks we’ll get reviews. Jon’s also been out walking these few days: Some thoughts on Apple Watch + Airpods (As you can see, something changed around May 12). Also means that I’m on track to pick up some Apple Activity “medals / badges” that I’ve never gotten – only took me over 5 years for a perfect week in exercise and perfect week closing all of my rings.

   Aura Strap – an apple watch band that includes a built-in sensor that measures bioimpedance analysis – fat/muscle and hydration. Syncs with Apple Health (a must for me). Mostly interested to see if it matches up with what my smart scale tells me. Ships in late June. $99
   Oura Ring – a smart ring that measures sleep quality, heart rate variability, and respiratory rate. Great for times when I’m not wearing my watch (sleeping) and could be a replacement for my wedding band (which is getting a bit loose). Pricey ($299), but if it gives me good sleep tracking and more info, might be worth it. Also helps me have another measure of things my Apple Watch tracks. Sizing kit comes this week, then I select my size and they ship out the ring the next day.
   Lumen – by far the craziest one – hack your metabolism by analyzing Co2 output. Claims that it will tell you what your body is running on that day – carbs or protein. Then gives nutritional guidelines for that day to help lose weight by eating what your body is processing. I’ve always noticed some strange things about my weight loss over the past 2 years and I’ve wondered if it’s due to differences in what I’m eating day to day. $299, ordered on Feb 17, arrives on Thursday.

5. Jon’s R tip of the week
   Cleaning up others mistakes: In a perfect world, data would always be in the way we need it, so dollar amounts would be “12.32” to mean $12.32. However when you let others enter data, sometimes they do annoying things with the best of intentions: “$ 12.32” or “12.32 USD” or “$12.32 USD” or “12 dollars” etc… However we can use the string manipulation commands in R to help us:

   y <- c("14.95","25.62","35.50"); sum(as.numeric(y)) z <- c("14.95 USD","25.62 USD","35.50 USD","103.52 USD"); sum(as.numeric(substr(z,1,(nchar(z)-4)))) b <- c("$14.95", "$25.62","$35.50") sum(as.numeric(substr(b,2,(nchar(b)))))

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