Yodeller

We are heading ro our cottage for the weekend with my son. While sitting in the car as a passenger it occured to me that this might be the first time I'm in the passenger seat going there since I got my driver's license almost 30 years ago.

Countless times I've driven there with a car full of passengers who have already starting ro enjoy the weekend on the way. I've never had that luxury - until now. Need to take an advantage of the situation when it finally is offered for me.

It's quite strange to think in all these years this hasn't happened before. I wouldn't say it has bothered me, I haven't missed it much.

There are very few books I have left unfinished, but there are books when I have seriously contemplated to just stop reading them. Usually it just runs into trying ro churn pages as fast as possible to get through it and look for something else ro read next. Few times getting past the first few hundred pages of boring text has paid of and the book has actually ended in my top list.

On the other hand when I'm reading a really good book at the same time as I can't put the book down I want to slow down for it not to end too soon. I need to hold myself back not to finish it too fast but often in those cases I find myself reading through the night, finishing the book just in time to have still a few hours to sleep. They can be quite captivating. Luckily this doesn't happen too often. There aren't so many books that good. I kinda wish there were, but then again that wouldn't be good for my sleep.

Finding a right niche in the markets has it's benefits. Excelling in that area and making a name for yourself can give a good standing for a business but it also has it's limitations. Once you have gained substantial market share there isn't that much growth potential left.

Breaking into new areas isn't easy. If the company is tuned delivering on certain technology adapting to new ways of working, no matter how close the new technology might be has it's challenges. Even if it's not as rigid as the traditional manufacturing there are still some similarities transforming your "production line" for something new.

It's also hard sell to the customers. Even if the team would be more than enough competent to work on some other technologies the customers usually require some display of it. They want references on that particular technology. Often even delivered to similar customers in their industry even though the use cases between different industries aren't really that different.

Sometimes the requirement for applying a certain technology within a certain industry are so specific there isn't even really a chance for real competition when there aren't that many vendors that can fulfil those requirements. Of course this is great if you happen to be that vendor, but then you are once again trapped in the niche and limited by those potential customers.

Towards the end of this month we will get a new (temporary) moon to orbit pur planet. The asteroid 2024 PT5 will be trapped momentarily to earth's gravitational field and do one rotation around our planet before returning back to the Arjuna asteroid belt where it originated.

The rotation will take just a bit less than two months, but unfortunately suring that time we won't be able to enjoy an unusual spectacular stellar view. The asteroid is only a few meters across and not visible to the naked eye. Not even for the most expensive telescopes a normal person can buy.

These events aren't actually that uncommon. There has been a couple of similar events recorded ober past decades. It has most probably happened a lot more times in the past, but our ability to detect such things have only just improved enough that we can actually "see" them. There might be even more of those small rocks visiting us every now and then. Just too small to detect even with the modern technology.

Earlier this year our old meeting room reservation displays started to show their age. After the third one stopped working we made the decision to get new ones. It's not that we couldn't have gotten new one earlier, but one of our core values is sustainability so we tend to try to use the technology as long as it remains usable instead of replacing it too often with the latest and greatest tech.

As a person responsible of all things technical I was tasked to search for replacements for those. The old screens were basically clarified android tablets with their power hungry always on screens (except during out of office hours) I wanted to have something more "green". The e-ink screens are the most efficient ways to display visual information since paper so the choice was obvious.

After some research on available markets I found a perfect solution: screens that were able to clearly display the status of the room and also provide some additional information like upcoming bookings, while lasting for a year on a single charge of their tiny batteries.

The screens already arrived a couple of weeks ago, but I only had time to start the setup of them last week. I immediately encountered a problem as I wasn't able to connect to them from the management software on my phone. I didn't have too much time to investigate the problem back then and after a few tries I gave up, deciding to get back to it later when I had better time.

Today I got back to the office and was prepared to spend substantial amount of time to investigate the issue and try to get the setup done. But to my surprise the connection worked straight away on my first try. Nothing should have changed since last week, but what seemed impossible just a week ago just worked today. Sometimes technology can act just like magic.