When to break the rules

Last weekend we celebrated midsummer at my parents and all the relatives. Our boys put big smiles on everybody’s face, but especially my grandmother, who now has great grandmother on her CV. She also celebrated her 90th birthday on Saturday which coincide with Midsummer, which is a big Swedish holiday, so we had a nice celebration. When the dinner was over, and it was bedtime for the little boys, 3-year-old Elis was nowhere to be found. We looked and finally we found him with great grandma, who had already gone to bed. She was watching TV and Elis had cozied up in the double bed sofa next to her. And when I told him it was time to go to bed he just said. No dad, I am sleeping in THIS bed and watch TV. Great grandma had zero objections. We don’t see each other that often because we live in different cities. I noticed the biggest smile I had ever seen, literally, on great grandma’s face, when she finally had the opportunity to just be together with him. This was clearly one of those occasions when rules had to be broken. I just laughed and said, OK, you sleep here that’s perfectly fine. I also noted that Elis eyes were very tired, and minutes later he was snoring. It was the best 90th birthday present ever.

Philosophy, Habits, ParentingRikard ÖqvistJune 28, 2022parenting, rules, machine learning, habits, familyComment

Epic video gaming moments

What Microsoft has done with Flight Simulator 2020 is nothing but mind blowing. They have digitalized the entire world for us to fly around in. They have used map data with height geometry and flight and satellite photos from Bing and combined it with AI magic that have generated buildings and trees with image recognition technology. The weather is rendered in real time, so if you look outside and it’s a rainy sunset in Umeå, that is precisely what you will experience if you fire up the simulator and take off from Umeå Airport. If you go low enough, you can even see cars driving on the roads. The graphics are nothing short of stunning. It is by far the most beautiful video game I have seen. However, that last sentence will probably age poorly, because I have said the same thing about Super Mario on the NES.

Travel, Education, EngineeringRikard ÖqvistAugust 29, 2020Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, review, gaming, simulator, video game, NES, geography, learning, graphics, AI, machine learningComment