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Creative Acoustician

Everyone is a three-year-old

Everyone is a three-year-old

”Daddy, hug!!!” My three-year-old son yelled while running to me and gave me the biggest good-bye hug I have ever got in my life. I was about to leave on a job trip with a stay in the hotel. Just one night, no big deal. The tears started rolling down, mostly from overwhelming joy but also from sadness. Every single soldier on both sides were also somebodys three-year-old not that long ago. Somebodys brother, husband, friend, dad… I thought about what it would feel like if this was the last time I would ever hug my little boy. It gave me a glimpse into the reality of what thousands of Russians and Ukrainians are going through right now. And that’s all I can write tonight. I will pray instead.

DiaryRikard ÖqvistFebruary 28, 2022love, familyComment

Stay below 70%

Stay below 70%

A very good rule of thumb when riding a motorcycle on a racetrack is to stay within 70% of your maximum capacity. Because you will need those spare 30% when you mess up – which you will. I love to do track days with my motorcycles. It’s the best practice there is. To expand your skill level and learn exactly where your current limit is and how it feels to approach it. That has saved my ass and perhaps even my life on several occasions in the real world, which is less forgiving than a racetrack.

Music, MotorcycleRikard ÖqvistFebruary 21, 2022himalaya, meshuggah, drums, trackday, racetrack, motorcycleComment

A simple Valentine’s Day

A simple Valentine’s Day

Last Saturday I finally tested positive and started acquiring my natural immunity. Knowing that everyone on the planet will get it sooner or later, I was relieved when the two lines showed up after inserting a tops half-way into my brain. So nice to just get it over with and leave this whole insanity behind us. The sickness has been a walk in the park. One of the mildest colds I have ever had. But the week was quite tough anyway due to the lack of sleep. My sleep account was already running dry, and when both boys got the fever and kept us up at night, the whole situation felt more like a bad hangover that went on for a week.

Parenting, DiaryRikard ÖqvistFebruary 14, 2022love, family, kidsComment

The few cannot control the many

The few cannot control the many

Austria recently became the first EU country to make vaccinations mandatory for all adults above 18. I just checked some numbers, and the current coverage seems to be around 75%. To enforce the law, the government have decided on fines of 600 EUR up to a total of 3600 EUR per quarter. This move is interesting for several reasons, but the one that I find most interesting is that such a law will be completely impossible to enforce in practice on one condition: The ones who don’t want it simply need to say No, if their number is large enough.

PhilosophyRikard ÖqvistFebruary 8, 2022vaccine, covid, authoritarianism, austriaComment

What is your red line?

What is your red line?

During the current struggle between vaccinated and unvaccinated, I have been thinking about what it means to support the exclusion of certain groups from society. For example, Emmanuel Macron recently proposed that “they” should perhaps not be regarded as citizens. It is one thing to suggest enforced vaccinations in a heated online conversation or a Tweet, but once you dig a little deeper, certain noteworthy consequences appear. Below, I will simply list some proposals – simple solutions – that I have experienced in my own social network, and how I interpret their consequences. It will not be a pleasant read.

PhilosophyRikard ÖqvistJanuary 31, 2022covid, evil, tyranny, humanityComment

Be prepared

Be prepared

This weekend I finally managed to photograph an Otter. Actually, I even got three (1) of them in a single shot/video! I have been trying to snap a picture of one for over a year, but they have always eluded me until now. I have usually seen them from a window, and then I have rushed to grab my camera and when I got back it was nowhere to be seen. We are talking about a time window of about 30-60 seconds here. I can honestly say that I am hooked permanently now on nature photography. It is so rewarding, and when you live in a place like we do, it is all but mandatory to get a tele lens and learn photography. My wife told me that there are only around 2000 Otters in the whole of Sweden. They are super rare. That means that I have just documented a significant part of the entire Swedish Otter population. They are so rare that you are supposed to report sightings in Sweden (which I just did).

Art, Diary, PhotographyRikard ÖqvistJanuary 24, 2022photography, focus, preparation, productivityComment

An idea so stupid it might actually work

An idea so stupid it might actually work

When I decide to do something, I often become obsessed. The perfect example is when I decide to learn to play the drums and chose Bleed by Meshuggah as my first song. This is arguably one of the most difficult metal songs ever written, and thus I thought that it must be the perfect place to start for obsessed beginners like me. If you learn a song on the very edge of what is possible, any other (normal) song becomes a walk in the park, right?

MusicRikard ÖqvistJanuary 18, 2022drums, practice, habits, 15 minutes Comments

You can’t win them all

You can’t win them all

After a couple of hours of screaming kids and dad duties I can finally start writing my blog post, Iron Maiden style: Two minutes to midnight. Tonight, the only thing driving me forward is the routine. This is the 110th weekly post and for every week it just feels more and more difficult to miss it. I know that if I miss just one post, this blog project is over, but I am not there yet. I find great pleasure in writing even if no one is reading, and that makes it all worth it.

PhilosophyRikard ÖqvistJanuary 11, 2022writing, thinking, parentingComment

Freedom or constraints?

Freedom or constraints?

My wife was writing our weekly food/groceries order online tonight and asked me: “What would you like to have for dinner this Friday when your friend visits us?”. I couldn’t think of anything. Isn’t that interesting? I have all the possibilities in the world and come up with no answer. Had she instead asked, “Would you like to eat pancakes or meatballs?” the problem would have been extremely easy. Voila, we just created a boundary condition. There’s clearly a flip side with total freedom when it comes to creativity.

PhilosophyRikard ÖqvistJanuary 3, 2022choices, leadership, culture, creativity, freedom, responsibilityComment

Am I on the path to Heaven or Hell?

Am I on the path to Heaven or Hell?

I have been visiting my mom and dad during the Christmas holidays, and the visit has clearly demonstrated the importance of routines and habits. When you are administering a two kid-two dog family, routines are very important to get anything done. But the challenge is to keep the routines going when you’re away for a couple of days. One of the habits that did work though, is the writing practice. I was about to go to bed, when it hit me “What a minute, it’s Monday and I haven’t written my weekly piece.” So, not allowed to go to sleep yet. This is the 108th weekly piece without interruption and I am not going to start tonight. My writing habit has become like a giant flywheel that is spinning at high speed. There is MORE resistance to NOT write, than what it is to fire up the laptop in the middle of the night and get going. How interesting!

Habits, PhilosophyRikard ÖqvistDecember 28, 2021future authoring, planning, habits, consistency, dreams, vision, goal, hell, nightmare, regretComment

The worst days are the most important

The worst days are the most important

I’ve been publishing content daily for more than two years by now and this is the most important lesson that I’ve learned. Never pre-produce your content! The best blogs and videos are created on the fly when you’re in the zone. You cannot pre-plan flow. However, writing a blog or recording daily videos has a flip side. What do you do when you are all out of inspiration? Sometimes life sends you a curveball and it is all but impossible to create. Today is one of those days, and I now wish that I had some pre-produced content ready to publish. But I don’t, so here I am anyway. And I guess that might be an even more important lesson.

HabitsRikard ÖqvistDecember 20, 2021blogging, vlogging, writing, thinking, consistencyComment

It started with a Gut feeling

It started with a Gut feeling

A couple of years ago, I had a strong gut feeling that something bad was going to happen. Something really bad, and I told my wife that “we have to get out of here”. We had to get away from our nice apartment in the city and settle down in a house in the countryside. That gut feeling should not be dismissed. It has never failed me. Unfortunately, I have never been so right about anything in my whole life. Out here, in our new home – nothing, and I mean NOTHING has changed since 2019. A solid foundation keeps you sane.

PhilosophyRikard ÖqvistDecember 14, 2021gut feeling, countrylife, covidComment

Laughter is contagious

Laughter is contagious

I’ve been doing a bit of simulator flying this last year in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. I’ve mostly been doing some sightseeing occasionally, using an old Xbox gamepad. It gets the job done, however, when I started flying in VR some problems arose when it was time to land the plane. I find the landing the most challenging part of a flight, by far. One critical aspect of landing is throttle control, because when landing you want to go slow, but not below the stall speed. I have lost count on the number of times I plummeted from the sky because of stalling and hopeless throttle control. Last week, I had enough and started scanning the 2nd hand market for a HOTAS system (Hands On Stick And Throttle). That is the flying equivalent to getting a steering wheel for your racing games. I finally found a seller, and it turned out to be a real feelgood story.

PhilosophyRikard ÖqvistDecember 6, 2021feelgood, wholesome, laughter, butterfly effect, humorComment

Things are only free if your time has no value

Things are only free if your time has no value

A couple of days ago, winter arrived in all its glory from one day to the next. It dumped a lot of snow in just one day, and the ice on the sea started to form. However, with snow comes the need to displace snow for walking paths and accessibility. There’s nothing wrong with getting some physical exercise, but a snow blower can be a wonderful companion throughout the winter season. Unless they suffer from gasoline incontinence, like my trusty companion developed last spring.

ParentingRikard ÖqvistNovember 29, 2021priorities, time, planning, productivity, focus, habits Comments

Most of the things you worry about never happen

Most of the things you worry about never happen

I have been working with the acoustic design of timber buildings my whole career, but it isn’t until this past year that actual buildings are inaugurated, and people move in. The building process is slow, and it takes several years from the start to the end user getting a new home. And even then, it’ll probably take another six months until you know whether you did a good job. If you hear nothing, that is. If something goes wrong and the tenants perceive annoyance, you will probably learn about it much sooner.

Engineering, PhilosophyRikard ÖqvistNovember 23, 2021CLT, timber, buildings, civil engineeringComment

If it works, Don't fix it!

If it works, Don't fix it!

A couple of days ago, I opened the Microsoft Whiteboard app that I have been using for a couple of years. It is one of my most used apps. And they had released an update, probably to do something nice with the release of Windows 11. But this new version was a total disaster. The update was a complete downgrade in my usage scenario. I was so mad, that I published a video about it in frustration. How wonderful it is when the internet community responds. In no time at all, I had a solution on how to roll back to the old usable version and as of this writing the issue has been fixed.

ComputerRikard ÖqvistNovember 16, 2021microsoft, update, technologyComment

A beginner’s mind with an advanced toolkit

A beginner’s mind with an advanced toolkit

Yesterday I listened to a Podcast with Bret Weinstein (DarkHorse) on the topic of how to think like a Nobel Prize winner. The key takeaway is the same title is this blog post. The message resonated very strongly with me because I have used a similar approach for the past decade in various endeavors. The beginner sees a lot of options but has very few tools to use. The expert on the other hand, tends to see few solutions to a given problem, and has many different tools to solve them. To take the best of both worlds would indeed be a lot of options and many ways to approach the problem.

Education, PhilosophyRikard ÖqvistNovember 9, 2021mentorship, growth, Nobel prize, musicComment

System updates and glitches

System updates and glitches

My favorite system update with bad timing was last year when I had scheduled an online tutoring activity on Zoom with about 40 students. I made sure to test and connect every piece of equipment the night before and it worked like a charm. The next day, I was almost an hour ahead of schedule and fired up my system to make sure there would be no issues. Then, my HP Elite X2 decided it was time to conduct a major system update with BIOS flash. You cannot skip it; it just begins the update process when it feels like it. Even if you are standing in front of an audience. And this is a time-consuming process. I didn’t know whether I should laugh or cry as I watched the counters on the clock come closer and closer to 13:00 when the lecture starts.

ComputerRikard ÖqvistNovember 1, 2021windows, gaming, IT, technologyComment

Order, chaos, productivity, and rest

Order, chaos, productivity, and rest

If you don’t have time to take a five-minute break, you should take a ten-minute break. I don’t remember the source of this quote, or even the exact wording, but there is a lot of wisdom in it. From experience, I have learned that when your workload increases until the point tunnel vision starts to kick in, it is critical do remember this simple rule. When it feels as if the to-do list grows faster than your ability, some of the first things to skip is breaks, exercise and decluttering. Last week was just one of those weeks. Really, the whole last month has been like that. I had so much stuff to do that I had to work the whole weekend. So, I applied the rule and spent two wonderful days with my family, took long dog walks and cleaned both my office and my home.

Habits, PhilosophyRikard ÖqvistOctober 25, 2021chaos, order, productivity, rest, alcohol, declutter, cleanyourroomComment

When the universe smiles at you

When the universe smiles at you

There’s a Swedish saying “En olycka kommer sällan ensam” (When it rains, it pours). If that is true, the opposite must also be true, but I don’t know any similar saying by heart. So, I prefer to think of it as if the universe is smiling at you. Because it sometimes feels as if the whole universe conspires to help you. When I have had those positive experiences, the typical scenario is that I am extremely stressed out about something, and then suddenly the problem just solves itself without attention. Yes, sometimes the best solution to a problem can simply be to just ignore it. Last week I experienced one of the most enjoyable smiles so far.

PhilosophyRikard ÖqvistOctober 18, 2021luck, flow, productivity, stress, pressure, consulting, planningComment