In the centre of Stockholm is the island of Gamla Stan (actually an area consisting of several islands, for the pedants out there), the old town. While I was walking around I happened upon the Nobel Museum, which was having an open day. So I took a look inside. I guess the biggest surprise (for me at least, I’m sure you all know this) was to find that Alfred Nobel made his money from the manufacture of explosives.
[audiobook]
Navigate any Situation, Lead with Confidence and Create an Impact at Work. https://www.mikebechtle.com/books/how-to-read-a-room/
I got this audiobook with the aim of understanding a bit more about what is going on in meetings of various sorts. I had forgotten, at the time, that I don’t actually attend meetings that much any more, so I’m not sure I can really get much value from the information contained within.
The book starts out as a fairly standard ‘change your mindset’ business leader book, then takes a bit of a detour via ‘how to win friends and influence people’ before getting to the interesting parts.
There are some useful observations, but they are mostly a collection of near-obvious things, like:
Later in the book he covers how to apply these techniques to online meetings, again bringing me little that I don’t already do, camera on, good lighting, be in charge of the mute button.
The final part of the book talks about servant leadership, which was a little more interesting. This is about leading from positions which are not formally leadership positions. Bringing positive attitudes and communications styles to teams which are in some ways dysfunctional.
All-in-all, a mildly interesting book but I probably wouldn’t bother unless you really are new to all these communications approaches. It did make me nostalgic for the days I used to actually talk to people face to face, but there are so many down sides to that that I am unsure I could go back to it any time soon.
Exploring Kista some more, on my way back from Lilla Rinkeby I found a few more things to photograph.
Wandering around another part of Kista, next to the nature reserve there is another, quite different, nature reserve. This is a marshy area with a walkway across the swamp to a little birdwatching shelter. The day I was there it had frozen overnight so the walkway was treacherous.
Just along the road from Låssa church there is a rune stone. This isn’t as well restored as some of the others I have seen.
Around the corner from Lindormsnäs is Låssa, the village closest to the Rösaring Stone Labyrinth – the maze itself is buried deep in a country park/nature reserve beyond the village. I didn’t have time to visit it before returning the car so is a place I want to revisit when I have some more time.
I thought I’d take advantage of having a car and have a bit of a drive around after dropping A off at the airport. A quick look at the map showed a labyrinth near Bro, so that seemed like a viable destination. However I got a bit distracted on the way there and found myself following signs to Lindormsnäs.
Its a small village on a ness pointing out into Lake Mälaren. I was a little disappointed when I got there how unimportant the lake seems to be to the village, its something at the bottom of the fields, rather than being a central part of character of the place.
One day I’m going to see Nyköping by daylight. But not until we’re a bit closer to summer. I took a wander along the riverside from the town centre toward the sea.
From time to time I buy myself a little devboard to tinker with, mostly they are ESP32 based these days, there’s a nice ecosystem around them and they work with the Arduino devtools. I’m going to try to record pertinent information about these boards in a place where I can find it again – the internet is a slippery place and things keep moving around and disappearing.
My latest is a ESP32-S3-Touch-LCD-1.69 from Waveshare, I had one with a round screen before, which didn’t work at all, this one has a small square screen similar to those you see on modern cheap ‘smart’ watches. There is no battery, so it isn’t viable as a watch in its own right, but it does have a connector to attach one if you can order one with the right connector. I can’t, it seems.
Waveshare are normally pretty good at documenting their devices:
I don’t have a plan for what to do with this yet – I have been looking for a small screened wifi enabled device, to use as a gauge or readout for some thing, but I’m not sure what yet. I have an epaper device which is suitable for slow moving readouts, not that I’ve found anything to read out yet.
As usual, though, I start out with the demos and examples to make sure I can compile and deploy, it is shipped with the LVGL_Arduino demo installed, and is always reassuring when the shipped software is included as a demo.
All-in-all this is a nice little devboard, but there are still no plans for what to do with it.