Winter has truly arrived in Denmark. I will say that 2 years in, my body has become accustomed to the cold now - still truly hate the wind when it smacks in your face.

Sahil Lavingia is someone I have been following for a while. This Spotify playlist is an easy way to get into his thoughts. His latest book The Minimalist Entrepreneur is high on my reading list.

Truly glorious day in the middle of November in Copenhagen. We often go for days (weeks?) without seeing the sun, so when it eventually makes an appearance, its a grand statement. Of course you never get just a carrot, the stick is the temperature was at 0°C this morning.

In Abeyance Vol.3 No.051

Latest issue of my newsletter In Abeyance is finally out. Over the last year I have fallen out of my routine for writing in the morning. Part of this has been due to my regular work creeping outside it’s time boundaries.

I have considered making the newsletter easier to write (by writing less) but that defeats the whole point of this endeavour. What I have settled on is accepting that sometimes I will be late but (hopefully) worth the wait.

Surrounding your desk.
Around your television media area.
Across your kitchen (over and under the counters).
Deep inside your walls.
Running under your feet.
They deliver power and signals.
Cables are ubiquitous.

Yet even for an electrical engineer like myself, it would be difficult to argue that they are great to have around. They get tangled up. They fray. They are a necessary evil.

What a glorious place it would be if all your appliances and devices where always charged and ready to go. Wireless power. An idea nearly as old as electricity itself.

Read issue 051.

Got my Soundcore Q30s today and you can colour me super impressed. For 1/3 the price of what I paid for my Sony pair, 4 years ago, I get great sound, multiple device connectivity, ANC, an app with all the settings. Insane value. Now I just need the equivalent earbuds.

Last week my noise cancelling cans (Sony 1000x mark I) broke (plastic just snapped), so am patiently waiting on the mailman to bring in my replacement. Kids and a 100m2 apartment does not allow work to be done. I decided to spend less and opted for the Anker Soundcore Q30.

09 / Prelude
Nothingness and everything, in a space that is both completely dark and bright at the same time. Except thats not true. In the abyss is a tiny point. Except its not a point at all. Its a seed. A seed both glowing and stealing light at the same time. Finally after seconds or maybe it is millennia, a bright, luminescent green seed begins to sprout.
End Prelude

08 / Prelude
Recognising their stalemate, out of desperation the energies begin to devour each other. Like a snake eating it’s tail. They inch closer and closer to each other. The space they occupy gets smaller and smaller with every bite, until finally they all but consume each other completely. Leaving nothingness.

07 / Prelude
As the battles continues the two energies manifest further as two distinct entities. One as an angry and violent concubine of spikes exploding in every direction. The other as a flowing sea of tentacles. After discovering that they could not live in harmony with each other, they quickly discover that neither of them can overpower the other either.

06 / Prelude
It doesn’t take very long for the first signs of a struggle to begin. The attacks come from both sides, like soft waves crashing onto the side of thorny rocks. The tentacles wrap around the spikes. The spikes pierce through the tentacles. There is no malice in these violent actions. They flow naturally into one another.

Sylvane was right. It is pretty easy to make good Asian food. You just need a great teacher (Chef Jack is the man to follow).

05 / Prelude
Recognising that this dance cannot continue forever, they shift their strategies. It is not in their nature to live in harmony with each other. One or the other must become dominant. One or the other must control the direction. They retreat completely from each other. The dark begins to manifest a thorny exterior. The bright begins to grow soft rounded tentacles.

04 / Prelude
The energies remain distinct but futilely try and achieve a balance in each other’s presence. This effort offers no result as the draw to overpower is too strong. This leads them instead to engulf each other. First seen as tiny pins of light in the vastness of the black. The pins grow until they all but consume the dark leaving small black specks, like vanilla seeds in milk. Again and again this sequence repeats itself. Again and again.

03 / Prelude
Like two different seas they gently collide. At first the push and pull is gentle, almost soothing in its nature. Back and forth. A gentle wave on the sea. Gradually the interaction becomes more purposeful as the two energies begin to take on a more physical form. They begin to flow into each other. Engulfing some parts, only to surrender others. Constantly in motion.

COP26 is now in full swing and honestly I think its going to be a summit of more empty promises. We cannot simply engineer ourselves out of our situation without fundamental behavioural change. Embracing a reduced carbon footprint is worthless when for every one who does, there is another doing the exact opposite.

Government policies and promises are worthless without an tacit acknowledgement that our lifestyles are just not viable. How much that dial needs to be turned, how much discomfort needs to be spread, is for those governments to collectively decide and agree and then implement. They won’t though. 5 years from now when things are even worse, we will still be discussing the way forward decades into the future.

25,000 delegates descending upon Glasgow to discuss climate change. What the hell are we doing?

02 / Prelude
The Iyes grow at a speed that stretches through an eternity. They mature in tandem with each other. At first there is harmony. Their coexistence is barely registered by the other. They grow in gentle movements, swaying and flowing into each other. Their growth never ends. Eventually they begin to occupy all the conceivable space around them. Where one starts the other ends. Around and around, to infinity.

My coffee education continues. This time at Impact Roasters, an Ethiopian micro-roaster 10 min from my house…wait what? Kinda annoyed I only found out about this now, but also it is good timing because I can now hopefully appreciate it all the more.

01 / Prelude
In the stillness of infinity and at the edge of chaos, they manifest simultaneously. Although they share the same spectrum they exist on either end of it. Their energies and purpose in direct opposition to the other. One forcing the blackest of realities. The other offering the brightest of hopes.

November is nearly upon us. For two years now I have been writing a short story every November. 50 words a day equates to roughly 1500 words a month. In the past I have tried to create completely original ideas that I had never worked on before. This year I have decided to write an idea I had 20 years ago. The story has had many false starts, however I have the overall direction mapped out.

Rather than worrying about doing the story justice, I’m just going to dive into this and see how and where it goes. It is a commitment, because the story won’t be anywhere near done this year. It will take many years to complete at this pace, either way I am really looking forward to sharing this story finally.

Jul (Christmas in Danish) tea season is upon us. A little early? Sure, but I’m not fussed about that. Definitely need a different drink to coffee, which I have been hitting a little too hard these last few months.

Fallen off the S-Wagon

I have fallen off the S-diet wagon these last few months. It has been the accumulation of any number of issues. Breakfast and everything till lunch is fine. Lunch is usually fine (rarely seconds) and no snacking until I finish work.

5pm onwards is where the wheels usually come off. The first snack hits. It’s small. Then the seconds come in. Then, depending on how tough the day was, I have a snack in the late evening as well.The evening for me has always been the tricky period to maintain the way I eat.

It seems to be a question of planning. Planning the evening meals so they happen at the right time and that they are a celebration (rather than just good enough) because then there is an incentive to snack or have seconds.

🍳 Chef Jack Ovens has become an staple in my house. I love his videos because they are incredibly instructional. This creamy Thai soup transported me to my happy place. I replaced a couple of ingredients (no bean sprouts in the supermarket). Asian comfort food on a Sunday evening.

When you are currently lost for words, might as well upload photos.

After raining all week we finally got some blue skies and a bit of sun. Shame about the wind.

Currently doing a major overhaul on the Stet.Build website (first time I do a complete update the website since I started publishing 2½ years ago now). A true revelation has been Textastic, which is by far the most polished environment for writing code on the iPad.

Going Electric

Been recently moving around the city on my electric powered Babboe and it has been transformational. The ability to travel several km within a safe dedicated bicycle lane, without breaking a sweat and worrying about traffic and parking on the other end is magical.

Being in control of the amount of energy that I exert on a given distance travelled is an amazing incentive of actually using the bike more regularly. There surely is a time and a place for a car, however depending on your daily life this might not actually be all that important really.

I certainly never intend to buy another non electric bike ever again. To all those ‘purists’ thinking about it as a torture exercise, it becomes a mega chore when it’s combined to a daily commute, in all types of weather.

What was meant to be a glorious day out began in abject disaster. A flat tyre. Apparently pretty common on new Babboe bikes as they put thin puncture prone tyres by default. Soo stupid.

Issue 050 of my newsletter In Abeyance is now out. Special issue as it doesn’t dive into a specific topic, rather it provides a loose taxonomy of the built environment and categorises all the articles so far within this taxonomy.

Writing In Abeyance for nearly 3 years I have learnt to be a little more chilled about deadlines, if the newsletter doesn’t feel ready. Last night I was ready to go, but woke up and the theme had galvanised further. Sometimes you need time to let things percolate a little.

🚲 I believe this makes us officially Danish (even though it’s a Dutch product).

The new weather app for the iPhone is exactly what you want from such an app. Completely best in class. It’s only taken them 15 OS versions and an acquisition. Better late than never!

🌂 The rainy season has begun. Prepping myself up for our third winter in Copenhagen. While I don’t mind the rain (have most of the gear to endure), I really dislike the wind. Always have. Wish someone would create a magnetic field that envelops you like an invisible umbrella.

Amazingly my Kindle still works, although the battery is not in great shape. Every new Kindle that gets released, I wonder whether or not I should upgrade. It’s taken 8 years, but the new Kindle Paperwhite might push me towards a meaningful upgrade.

🕹 I don’t normally get excited about video games, but I have been wanting Wipeout for the iPhone for as long as I have had an iPhone.The decade long wait is nearly over once Wipeout Rush is released. Finally.