Tag: opinion

Piece by Piece

~ tveskov ~ Leave a comment

As someone who loves both LEGO and Pharrell Williams, it will come as no surprise that I really liked the animated biopic “Piece by Piece“. Pharrell has had a hand in most of the mainstream pop I like from the last 20+ years. I like most of his own work, with one big exception; I really, really can’t stand his massive 2013 hit “Happy“; it makes my skin crawl. But otherwise, he seems like a really nice and cool guy. Certain people seem to have no age; David Bowie comes to mind, and Pharrell is in the same category. He was born in 1973, but listening to him speak and sing, he could be 32 for all I know. And making an autobiography as a $16 million LEGO animated feature film is a crazy idea. But it totally works. They shot all the celebrity interviews the traditional way and then animated the LEGO characters to the soundtrack (great fun to see Snoop Dogg, Gwen Stefani, Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar, Missy Elliott, Busta Rhymes and many others as LEGO minifigs).

And speaking about the movie with Rick Rubin, Pharrell says something interesting here: “I needed to see myself objectified first to write about myself.” So basically, he had to watch himself as a LEGO minifigure before he could create a song about his own life (the catchy ‘Piece by Piece‘ theme song from the movie).

Here’s the trailer; needless to say, if you are not into Pharrell, it will be a fairly boring movie, even if it is visually quite interesting and some of the jokes are good. One fun aspect is that Pharrell has synesthesia, meaning that he sees music and beats visually in his mind. This is brilliantly done with little LEGO builds in the movie, would have been hard to pull off in a more traditional documentary. Oh, and of course there is an official Pharrell LEGO Spaceship set you can get.

Thank you

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This site has already lived up to its purpose. Not many are reading, but as long as the right people are here, that’s all that matters to me. So if you are here, thank you ♥️

Go watch some good movies

~ tveskov ~ 1 Comment

Here is a list of 50+ movies I like, all dark and red judging by the covers. If you watch a lot of movies, you have surely seen some or most of these. And if you like the ones you’ve seen, there is a fair chance you will like the rest. I would say that the common theme of those movies is transcendence, but judge for yourself. Enjoy!

Vibes & Energy

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Vibes and energy have become shorthand terms in a world with way too much data and way too many opinions. Those two little words are used all over the mainstream now; back in the day, they were mostly reserved for the new age/neohippie crowd, but over the last half-decade or so, they have spread far and wide. It’s a kind of compression tool: that person has a weird energy, we are in for a vibe shift, matching energy, just vibing, and on it goes. Vibe coding is red hot; all of us non-coders can now use AI to create disposable apps in an hour or two (and then spend five hours trying to debug it!) I’m also not sure the AIs can fully grasp the meaning of vibes yet; perhaps that is still a human stronghold?. Content that is more vibe-based than plot-based is on the rise; Season 3 of ‘The White Lotus’ and Season 3 of ‘The Bear’ are more about vibes than about what is happening—in both cases, often bad vibes—but still. It would not take many sentences to describe what plays out over all those hours of TV, you will have to feel the vibes to get it. With that said, I did not really like any of those Seasons, but loved S1 and S2 of both shows.

And, also loving the fact that this photo of Rick Rubin has become the universal symbol of vibe coding..

I don’t think these concepts will go away any time soon, after all what is the universe other than vibrating energy?

Small synchronicities

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August 1993: After a couple of hectic weeks in San Francisco, I decided to head down towards LA. It was late in the evening, pitch dark and raining like crazy and I was in a bad mood. Had missed the chance of a couple of interviews and appointments. But for some reason I suddenly regretted my decision to leave SF, so I turn around and head north again. I have no clue on where I am, but in need of a place to sleep, so I just take the first exit from the highway and drives to a quiet street and pull over. This is before the internet takes off, so I have a look in my physical Lonely Planet guidebook. Looks like I’m somewhere in Oakland and finds the name of some semi-seedy motel in the book. I remember thinking, “How am I going to find this place in the godforsaken weather at this late hour.?” and then looking out and up. Then I realize that I am parked just in front of a huge but dark road sign. The sign has the name of the motel, so I’m right next to the place. After that, I took a couple of extra days in San Francisco, met some good people there AND managed to get my interviews sorted as well.

January 2024: Just grabbing some goods at the supermarket. At the cashiers I remember I have a few curly receipts for recycled bottles and cans. There’s three in my purse and by chance I find a fourth one in the inner pocket of my jacket. The cashier assistant looks at me a bit funny and says “Well, that’s a bit strange – you don’t have to pay anything because the amounts adds up exactly!”. Of course this is probably bound to happen out of all the many times one has paid for stuff, but still felt strange in the moment.

January 2020: Out walking in my neighborhood. It’s cold and dark (January in Denmark can be grim), and I am listening to a podcast about the early years of Prince’s career. I pass by a house, and through a large window I can see a family sitting around the dinner table. The reason I am looking extra intently is that the room is lit up in a stark, nasty purple color, probably some kind of Philips Hue situation gone terribly wrong. At that very moment, the podcast voice in my ear says ‘.. he referred to them as his purple family’, while I’m looking straight in at this very purple family. I hope they’ve gotten the lighting situation under control.

March 2025: I sadly never got into the ‘Severance’ show, and in January, I wrote a quick post about that with a random GIF from the show included. A couple of months later, I tried watching it again (people hyping it again, still not a fan). As I wrote a follow-up post and pressed ‘publish’, I looked up, and realized I was at that exact moment in the show, with the GIF playing simultaneously on my phone. It felt really weird.

June 2019: Talking to a friend who is an experienced meditator. I mention that sometimes when I meditate, it feels like I am looking outside myself, even with my eyes closed. He reminds me that this look ‘out’ is also just a part of myself, which makes a lot of sense to me. After he leaves, I’m sitting outside on the porch thinking about this. I hear a blackbird singing and as I always do look over at the neighbor’s roof where the bird is often sitting at the ridge of the roof (I have a long tradition of taking Instagram photos showing this exactly). But there is no bird.. I’m puzzled, but then I realize that the bird is sitting on MY own ridge just above my head. This made me smile.

July 2025: Sending my youngest son a text regarding some soon-to-expire tickets to LEGO House. His response is a bit baffling as he noticed that the podcast he had just started came out almost three years ago, same date as the one on the tickets. But that’s not the weird(est) bit; the topic of the podcast is the (most excellent) 1955 movie ‘The Night of the Hunter’ which we watched together a while ago. The podcast opens by listing a some significant things as old as the movie; the seatbelt AND the LEGO system! (the brick itself is older, but the idea of the building system saw the light of day 1955. Strange!

August 2025; During a game of ‘Hint’ I was challenged to draw red things, and in one round illustrate “The Red Crescent” (aka Red Cross). So I drew a moon and split it in half (my game partner guessed it, easy). On my way home there was a beautiful red moon, and looking at the photo the next day I noticed the moon was spilt by a wire, just like on the drawing.

I am a volunteer at a wonderful local museum here, a job I enjoy a lot. Not too long ago, I lost my ID card. I had been on a shift at the museum and knew that I had the card on me when I went into the city to run some errands afterwards. When I came home, it was gone; I must have lost it somewhere in the city. So the next time I came to the museum, I thought, “Better borrow a card for this shift; I’ll just grab a random one with a male name on it for now.” All the ID cards for the volunteers are hanging from several bookcases in huge bundles, probably 150+ of them. So I reached out and grabbed a random badge. It had my name on it. I was rattled for a moment there.

Maybe just a few random occurrences from the ‘What are the odds’ department. Most of us get those, especially if we are a bit present and aware. But it’s fun and sometimes a bit spooky when it happens. And these are the small ones; later we can get into the bigger ones where help occurs just when needed. Perhaps you have a good synchronicity to share?

If people were gears

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You meet a new person. Everything clicks, and sometimes it can happen quickly. I quite like the term fast friends; we don’t have that term in Danish (yet). For that to happen, both parties have probably put their most accessible side forward, the good side. And sometimes that is enough, and you can go back and forth for a while. But at some point, it will be clear that the motion can’t be sustained; you can only go so far. Depending on the speed, it can take anywhere between minutes to decades to see how far you can go. But even if the gears don’t fit perfectly together, it is still possible to keep moving; it might be a bit noisy and uneven, but still. This can be said for potential friends and/or partners. But probably shouldn’t be said. BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE NOT TWO DIMENSIONAL GEARS. Us humans have thousands of moving parts, and we can change and adapt over time. But sometimes it feels a bit like the illustration above, that’s why I made it and shared it here. Makes sense?

“All models are wrong, some are useful” as George E. P. Box famously put it.

Doing things without purpose

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I don’t meditate to calm a busy mind. I don’t take long walks to get good ideas or to get healthier. I don’t pay attention to my breath because I need to soothe my nervous system. Those things are enough in themselves. Why does everything have to have a purpose?

Those long walks having great, thoughtful conversations with smart people could be turned into a ‘product,’ some kind of long-form podcast or perhaps a commercial version as an extended coaching session? No thanks. Opportunism & instrumentalization—everything can be turned into means to an end. It’s a major disease in our culture that almost everything is done to achieve something else. Kids should play because playing is good, not to prepare them for something. Play is enough. Mindfulness should not be a bandaid on a hellish daily existence. That is also why I low-key hate ‘networking events’ where the only purpose is to meet people because it might be mutually beneficial. Note-taking and diaries are a big part of my daily routine, not because all those notes and recorded thoughts need a purpose, but because the act of thinking through writing feels good. And sometimes I do use a note for something else later, but even if I never did, it would still be worth it. But I want to try and share a bit more, for instance on this page.

Time You Enjoy Wasting Is Not Wasted Time*

Sure, there may be all kinds of benefits and all sorts of good side effects of doing the things mentioned above, but things can be what they are in themselves. It’s enough. Doing things without purpose can even feel a bit provocative, but so be it.

Enjoyable video conversations

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During Covid I was working full-time on LEGO projects, all of it from home (like many others). It went surprisingly well, and I believe it had a big impact on LEGO and many other companies’ attitudes towards remote work. A lot got done; even complex creative processes were possible using proper planning, training, and tools. Saved a lot of commuting. Having said that, there was also something dark and tiring associated with that way of working for extended periods of time. We probably all felt that bleak fatigue that comes with far too many awkward Teams-meetings (“Can you see my screen?” “You’re on mute” “Is that an old hand?”). To me, the Teams software became associated with that grim time period, and I have not had any particular wish to relive it. But on the other hand, there was something about with small groups of good people and the occasional positive one-on-one video dialogue that spoke to me.

So in 2024 I made a conscious effort to carry out a series of video conversations with people I hadn’t talked to in a long time, and in a few cases, never before. It was very, very enjoyable and something I would recommend doing more of.

Couple of points: Plan it well in advance and make it a ‘thing’ with a clear starting and ending time. An hour is fine, perhaps with an option to go another if things flow. As with many other activities, it helps a lot if you prep and plan a bit. This makes it much easier to be spontaneous once you’re actually doing it. Some quick notes with keywords on topics never hurt. But the conversation itself is key, no ‘outcomes’ or ‘conclusions/next steps’. That’s not the point!

If possible, I would also recommend using FaceTime; it just feels more natural than the other video chat platforms. The latency is a bit lower and the audio is a bit better, which makes a difference. One of the (many!) reasons that video meetings can feel tiring is that the poor frame rate and broken-up audio force your brain to work in overdrive, filling in the blanks, so to speak. So for those of us living in Apple-land, use FaceTime. And if you’ve ever had a long(ish) conversation with me, you know that often a mail with links relevant to our chat will arrive within a few days 🙂 And if you and I haven’t spoken for a long time, give me a shout and perhaps we can set something up..

My favorite LEGO Instagrammers

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One of the great things about the LEGO product is that there are always new surprising ways to build. And I’m still amazed on a regular basis when looking at AFOL accounts on Instagram. Here in rapid succession a few faves:

JK Brickworks – Amazing moving mechanisms with style and humor.
Doubleking – One word: Seatron! Some deep cuts there.
Tips & Bricks – Cool mini reviews and infographics.

JK Brickworks
Doubleking
Tipsandbricks



Brothers Brick – Oldie but goldie. (the blog is still great)
Brickleas – The models and the photography is outstanding.
Cosmic Brick – Flawless recreation of alternate builds etc.

Brothers Brick
Brickleas
Cosmic Brick



Brickstalgic – Outstanding builds, often smaller charming builds.
Avanaut – Great photography and style, also non-LEGO models.
legobuilds (sic) – Newish official AFOL account, solid retro content.

Brickstalgic
Avanaut
legobuilds


There are many other great ones for a future post. What are some of your favorite LEGO people on Instagram? Share in the comments.

Hey, I’m walkin’ here

~ tveskov ~ 2 Comments

The closest you get to doing nothing and still doing something is walking. I love taking walks, and I do it almost every day as part of my routine. It helps that I am very close to forests and the sea, but the main thing is that it boosts my thinking and my mental state. No one ever came back from a walk and said, “Damn, I should not have taken that walk” (from what I know). It may even be healthy. And one thinks differently when walking, compared to sitting, bicycling, running, commuting, and so on. There’s something about the natural pace of walking that does good things for the way I think.

In 2021, I walked 80 kilometers in a single day, from sunrise to sunset. That added up to 104,000 steps, or 50 miles. Why walk so far? Well, basically just to see if it was possible and because it offers a great opportunity to think a lot of thoughts and enjoy some beautiful nature. At least a couple of times a year, I go on a long walk of 50–60 km—it’s a form of meditation, and I highly recommend it. Just start with shorter distances and work your way up.

Everything clicked on that warm day in August: my legs felt good, I got only one small blister, and the weather was perfect. The key is just to maintain a pace of five km/h, including breaks, and to make time for lunch and a big ice cream at Østerstrand in Fredericia. The route was a mix of all the great hiking trails in the area around Lillebælt. I hadn’t planned it in advance, but I made sure to avoid too many hills and to keep a good balance between trails and asphalt. As you can see from the map, I did three loops, so there was an opportunity to quit if things didn’t work out. Never walking that far in one day again. Probably.

Here’s a couple of tips for walking that I have found useful.

I always keep a small backpack with basic supplies ready for a spontaneous long walk. Nothing fancy, just some extra socks, a water bottle ready for filling, napkins, band-aids, my antihistamine pills, a pen + paper. This makes it very easy to walk out the door when I feel like it, no friction.

Walking alone is very different from walking together. Both are great, and I am lucky enough to have two handfuls of good people who want to walk with me. It’s such a perfect combo: good conversations, light exercise, fresh air, and being in nature. Hard to beat that. A bit of route planning adds a lot to the enjoyment.

I am not a fan of walking boots, as I mostly do rather flat routes and surfaces. But I have two pairs of walking shoes, and on the really long trips, I switch a couple of times, including dry socks. And a pair of trainers is fine for walking as well, but good walking socks with dedicated left/right designations are definitely low-hanging fruit. Keep your feet dry at all costs.

Normally, I don’t listen to music or podcasts while walking. But I often take a lot of notes, always using voice dictation on my phone (just the Notes app + Siri, it works extremely well, perhaps 95% accurate). I also shoot quite a few photos en route; the only rule is that I never go out of my way to take a photo. You can see some of them here.