Seamus K - Irish tech industry expat living in Sweden.

Category: General (Page 5 of 15)

Bored at a work meeting? Then leave

I am supposed to be at an all day productivity training session today at work. But I have some other urgent stuff so I left. Funnily enough I talked to a few people at one of the breaks and they had similar feelings. The idea is fine, but there is no way we need to spend an entire day on this stuff. 1-2 hours tops. 

It is a pity when our time is getting tied up (and there were over 30 people in the room this morning) in this way. 

The best advice I have heard on meetings and productivity recently is from Elon Musk. He famously has said:

“Walk out of a meeting or drop off a call as soon as it is obvious you aren’t adding value.”

“It is not rude to leave. It is rude to make someone stay and waste their time.”

It takes a bit of bravery to do it. But you feel better afterwards, and you end up getting more real work done.

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Great story about people, and about politics

This is a wonderful story about the constitutional convention that lead to the legalisation of gay marriage. It left me with a lump in my throat. It’s an English translation of an article originally published in Germany

As well as being about two people it also talks about what I think is a powerful tool for resolving political issues in the future. Saving politics from the politicians so to speak. 

 

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Give me a cabin in the mountains. Please?

I have discovered I have a weakness for rustic mountain cabins. Show me a picture of some hikers and skiers relaxing in a simple wooden building, solid fuel heating, maybe no electricity, and being remote from civilisation and I will pause and droll momentarily.

STF is the Swedish Tourist organisation that runs the mountain/winderness huts here. I am a member and get their magazine, so several times a year I get to see photos like this.

Expect to see more here 🙂

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Bringing ice to eskimoes

Sweden is the land of white crockery. We were in IKEA yesterday, and I don’t think we saw anything other than plain, brilliant white cups, plates, bowls. and mugs. Which is all nice. But when I saw these beefy, brightly coloured mugs in Dunnes* in Cork I had to have them. 

Mugs from Ireland

They bring a nice bit of cheerful colour to the table. But it does seem a bit funny bringing delph to Sweden.

* Okay I have cheated a little, the jug is from Flying Tiger which I suppose does make it Scandinavian.

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Going to the moon. Maybe

It is the week of the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing. And a bit surprisingly it seems like there may actually be a return to the moon within the next decade! Though there are technical, monetary and political challenges to be overcome first. 

The Economist has a good summary of the different national plans, and some of the “why”. 

The fun thing is that the new 2024 deadline is being driven by Trump. He would like to have this milestone with his name against it before he leaves at the end of a second term. But to do that he will need money from the Democratic congress to accelerate the original (and already challenging) timeline of 2028. Want to bet the Democrats will give it to him?

This is all part of the ongoing debate in the US and elsewhere about where to point a manned space program as the International Space Station’s end comes into sight. Bush said Mars, knowing it would never happen on his watch. The efforts there were never serious. It can be done. But the technical and logistical challenges are huge. It would demand a financial and political commitment that to be sustained for over a decade. I struggle to see how any single government will do that (from the US or any other nation). Elon Musk’s plans are a wild card. But even they have to be regarded as speculative.

Obama effectively killed the Mars plans. Instead the target was made an asteroid landing. And along the way the moon reappeared. But now Trump’s administration, with an eye to its legacy, says it will be the moon again. Fair enough. There are hairy logistical challenges to face as well though.

NASAs description of the “Gateway” to the Moon

The US probably has a rocket for the job (the delayed and over budget SLS). It should have a spaceship to carry astronauts (the delayed and over budget Orion). The gateway is under contract (even if the timelines are to be advanced and it will be smaller than planned). The missing element is the moon lander itself. 

If all the political stuff bores you, then there is the question whether the “Gateway” idea is a good one at all. NASA likes it as it is a permanent piece of infrastructure that will anchor the manned program beyond low-earth-orbit (LEO) for years. But if your longer term objective is Mars or elsewhere, then it may actually be a speed bump. 

In the case of going from LEO to the lunar surface, the delta-v required is 6.1 km/second (it takes 4.1 km/s to get from LEO to low-lunar orbit and another 2.0 to get from there down to the surface). By contrast, to go from LEO to the Gateway’s proposed halo orbit—and then to the lunar surface—requires a delta-v of 6.85km/s.

Put another way, a spacecraft could leave LEO, reach the surface of the Moon, and return directly to Earth for a total delta-v cost of 9.1km/s. To do the same mission through the Gateway, both coming and going, requires a delta-v of 10.65km/s, a 17 percent increase. This is one reason why Zubrin has taken to calling the lunar Gateway a “toll booth,” because it adds significantly to the energies needed to reach the Moon.

Personally I think the solution to these various problems would be to massively increase the (relatively modest) spending there is on space exploration and do all of these things – moon with Gateway, a Mars program and whatever else besides. In the US NASA costs the average tax payer about $55 per year (0.5% of a $10,500 annual tax bill). And in Europe the European Space Agency is about €10 per person.

I doubt there is much political appetite for that though. Especially as in the mean time the public seems to be largely happy getting its space fix in a cheaper, and far more spectacular form from Netflix, HBO, and Amazon…

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Beautiful books

I saw the fabulous looking trailer for the BBC/HBO’s adaptation of Philip Pullman’s “Dark Materials” today. I may have to re-subscribe to HBO for that one (while also catching up on the Handmaids Tale, and Westworld). The trailer did remind me that I have no idea where my copies of the books have ended up. Having moved country and house multiple times in the last few years, loads of things have gone missing. Where is my favourite book on Irish history, or my copy of Good Omens? So many moves, so many prized things lost… đŸ˜„

dark materials hardback

Hardback copies of Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials”

I would love to get a set of all three Dark Materials books in hardback for my shelves. Can anyone lend me ÂŁ150 for a custom printed set? A friend once said to me of the trilogy that – this was a set of books you would put on a high (but not too high shelf) in a prominent place. And then you tell your children they are not allowed to read them 🙂

 

hardback jane austins

Hardback Jane Austins, and Mr Darcy

There are a few other books in my collection, or which used to be in my collection, that I would love to replace with good hardbacks (money and space allowing). I was in a friend’s house recently and she had a pretty set of Jane Austins alongside her Mr Darcy mug. The nice thing about these is that as well as being in subtle understated colours, they were smaller. Too many hardbacks are giants of books, that can only be read at home. Books are companions that you should be able to bring places with you!

Swedish Harry Potter covers

Swedish Harry Potter hardcover editions

One thing I have noticed, is that I often prefer the hardbacks which I see available outside of the English speaking world.  In Dublin bookshops the hardback sets can be be bright, almost gaudy, with different colours used on each of the books in a set. But look at these anniversary hardback issues of Harry Potter on sale in Swedish. The artwork is beautiful, the colours simple, and the books look good together. Putting all of them on a bookshelf together would make the room look prettier!

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My (first) Swedish nemesis…

After a couple of years of DuoLingo, which has served me well, I have finally started Swedish classes. Three weeks into them I am happy to say I am making progress, but I have also hit a few speed bumps along the way. This morning I hit the worst one…
 
In the class I was asked to come up with a sentence using the past tense form of the Swedish verb – “att göra” which is “To Do” in English. I couldn’t. My first suggestions were wrong, and I drew a blank on alternatives. And funnily enough I think the Irish language is to blame.
 
Irish doesn’t have a clear yes or no like English, or Swedish. So “I am” or “I am *verb*” is often used to answer questions. e.g. “Are you going to town” – “I am going“. And people also use forms of “I do“. Like: “did you put out the cat?” – “I did“. This use of Do carries over into how Irish people can speak English. The most famous/notorious example would be someone saying “I do be going for the dinner later“.
 
So when I was asked to provide a sentence in Swedish with “I did…” I couldn’t. Everything I thought of using a form of “I did *verb*” was wrong in Swedish. And I couldn’t think of any other example, even in English. My brain was hurting. And it was only as I left the class I figured out that it was probably Irish that was causing me the problem! 😀
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How hard can you push yourself, and for how long?

It looks like we have an answer – you can sustain 2.5 times your resting metabolic rate. And interestingly the constraint is your digestive system.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-48527798

 

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