This Monday, I had a morning meeting in Gothenburg. Since I am a tired old man nowadays, I detest the morning flights, especially with connections. It means waking up before going to bed and feeling like a flipper ball with all the transfers, security checks and stress. I sincerely hate it. However, a mate of mine advised me to grab the night train. When the train works, it is fantastic. There are two killer features with the train. No connections and when you wake up you are precisely in the city center.
I recently picked up my old habit of painting. Several nights in a row, when the kids have gone to bed, I bring out my trusty old iPad pro with the pencil and start sketching. I bring a cup of tea to the table to complete the little ritual. It’s been over three years now since I stopped painting regularly and sometimes it is perhaps a good idea to take a break, because I am having a ton of fun now when I picked up the pencil again. I have entered the magical flow state many times lately. I know this for a fact, because I have found myself time and time again with a cup of cold tea next to me.
This is an image from the 1950’s of how they envisioned the future. It looks pretty awesome to me. I would also love a flying car. I think this image also is quite telling. How would a future vision look today? My first guess is doom and gloom. The trajectory is so different. This old picture can only be created with a positive mindset and hope. Without hope there can be no meaning. Society is so weird nowadays. When riding a motorcycle, the very first and most important lesson is that you go where you look. You control the bike with your eyes first and foremost. The same goes for civilisation. If our society is unable to come up with an equally nice picture of the future, where do you think we’re going to end up?
A week ago, we christened our daughter. We had just left for the church with not much extra time to spare when I realized that we had forgotten an important detail – The christening gown… After the child, this is perhaps the second most important thing for the ceremony, so forgetting it at home is quite the achievement. In a case like this, you better make sure that you left too early because doing an unplanned detour back home to pick something up costs a lot of time that you do not have. At least that is the obvious solution; never leave at the last minute but instead wait a while at the destination. That will give you the margin you need. But i think there is another way that is even more important, at least for me.
I have been experimenting with various screen sizes for many years, especially triple monitor setups or very large single screens. In this post, I will try to figure out which one has worked the best for me in various scenarios. Choosing a monitor is not just about the size, but about the screen resolution i.e. your pixel real estate. Personally, I think the number of pixels is just like horsepower. It is impossible to have too many. Another very important factor is the refresh rate. Currently, I am running a triple 4k 27” setup, and for engineering purposes I think it will be all but impossible to back to anything less than 4k. Still, I am not satisfied because this setup has some serious drawbacks.
Last weekend we did a trip down memory lane; a LAN party using period correct Windows 98 hardware and four old (also) period correct friends. I played a ton of LAN parties back in the day and was often the organizer of large ones, sometimes up to about 20 people. Then there was a big gap when everyone was busy building families and careers for a decade or two. But rest assured, it is still just as fun today as back then. It might be even more fun today, because grumpy old men like us have now learned to value time in a completely different way. I am hard pressed to come up with any better way to spend time than an event such as this.
Even though it is still vacation, as a house owner it is important to keep the momentum going with regards to long-term improvements. It is not enough to just deal with the daily upkeep, one also must invest some time in improvement and development of the property. I have a long list of things that I know should be done, because they will bring about many quality-of-life improvements. However, they are not mission critical like moving the lawn, house cleaning or buying groceries. A method I have used to great success is to define three special tasks that deals with development, and make sure that I execute them the next day. It brings about a very good gut feeling when I tick off these three boxes, because they are clear progress towards a larger aim.
When I practise musical instruments, I always select the most difficult song I can imagine. The primary reason is that it will ruthlessly reveal your biggest weakness to you. Then, enlightened, I simply focus on that specific weakness for weeks, months or even years until I discover the next weakness. This past month, I made a wonderful discovery in my drum practice (I started in 2019). Finally, I could easily tell that my left hand was my weakest link.
I will never forget my first night in Minecraft. It is one of the defining moments in video game history. The sheer terror of trying to find a source of light and a roof over your head before the sun sets was epic. I didn’t succeed at first so I just dug a 1x1 hole in the dirt and hid inside it so the monsters couldn’t spawn with me or hurt me. That was when the game was still in alpha version. A lot has happened since then. But the game is still just as epic today, as those first days back in 2010.
Last Tuesday, I had five consecutive Teams meetings booked. I landed with the early morning flight, and connected to the first meeting while in the car on the way to my ordinary office around 30 minutes from the airport. My plan was to transfer the call to my workstation upon arrival. Instead, as I parked my car, I got disconnected. Before long, I realized that I had no reception on my phone. Unfortunately, my office isn’t connected to fibre, and thus I am running a 5G broadband service. The problem is that when the phone tower dies, I am completely cut off from the world.