Less is more

After finding my destroyed Airpods a week ago, I did a little experiment and dug out my unused pair of cable headphones that came with the phone. Now I have been using them for a week and I have made some interesting observations. In a full week, I have used them only two times. I took a phone call while walking, and I listened to some Youtube stuff tonight for around 10 minutes. And it is not that I have improved my self-control. Simply put, the cable headphones are lightyears worse than wireless Airpods. They are extremely bad from a usability perspective. Paradoxically I can now confirm that it is also their greatest strength.

Diary, HabitsRikard ÖqvistMay 23, 2024apple, airpods, focus, habits, disciplineComment

Good riddance!

Some months ago, on a dog walk this winter in a rough snowstorm, I dropped my Airpods. I didn’t notice they were gone it until I got back home. I instantly returned and backtracked to look for them. But a white Airpod case is near invisible in snow, and even though I was back in the same place just a couple of minutes later, they were already buried. They were gone. And that turned out to be a very good thing.

Habits, DiaryRikard ÖqvistMay 17, 2024apple, airpods, habits, coffee, attention Comment

Can an engineer use Apple computers?

I have used a Macbook as my private computer for a couple of years, but it never occurred to me that I can use it as a professional workstation as a civil engineer. Not until now. My regular company tablet PC, an HP Elite X2, has easily been my worst computer experience of all time. Even though it is fully specced and upgraded, it still is borderline unusable. At least if I am not running Linux on it – then it works perfectly. But that’s another story. The issue is likely the ultra-low voltage 15 W CPU which runs at 100% pretty much all the time. Don’t be fooled by the quad-core i7 logo. It is nowhere near the performance its name indicate. Anyway, the problem is that many of my crucial engineering apps are Windows only. Now I have learned that this is not a problem at all.

Engineering, ComputerRikard ÖqvistApril 17, 2023apple, microsoft, civil engineering, windows, macosComment

Should you diversify or focus?

For the past 216 days I have created a painting/sketch every day. For the first months I used a timer set at 60 seconds, no more, no less. In the beginning I tried out some different techniques and tools, and I quickly settled with Autodesk Sketchbook on the iPad pro. Simplicity was the key. You can just fire up the iPad, grab the Apple pencil, choose an object to draw and then you do it. Indeed, extremely fast, and simple. But there is a drawback: When you are travelling, the iPad is too cumbersome. That’s why I went to Panduro and bought a small artist sketchbook, some graphite pens, an eraser and a sharpener. As an artist, my kit is perhaps as portable as it gets, considering the infinite possibilities on offer. I was planning to use it only when travelling and go back to my iPad when I got home. As it turns out, I haven’t used my iPad for weeks now. I stayed with the pen and paper.

Education, Habits, PhilosophyRikard ÖqvistDecember 5, 2020learning, painting, sketching, art, graphite, apple, ipad, growth, focus, openness, creativity, schoolComment