Lars-Christian's website

Wherever you go

2026-05-12T00:00:09+00:00

There you'll be

Tracking my workouts circa 2012

2026-05-14T00:00:08+00:00

A couple years before I got my first GPS watch, this was how I tracked my workouts:

This was a ‘10k’ (ish) run. Based on my understanding of what someone had told me was the course of a local 10k race.

To be honest, it worked just fine. I'm not sure adding GPS and other sensors for a multitude of advanced metrics has made me any fitter than I would've been if I'd just continued running with my old iPod Nano in hand. But it does make my workout log look a little better, so there's that.

Cruel irony of addiction

2026-05-20T00:00:07+00:00

Caffeine's negative effects on me are never clearer than when I'm under the influence of caffeine.

(I rewrote that sentence 13 times to get it ‘right’. It still doesn't feel right, but perfect is the enemy of good.)

Time for a new printer

2026-05-23T00:00:06+00:00

Signed up for updates about Open Printer. Hopefully this project sees the light of day, and soon! Right ready for a printer in the house, and this looks perfect.

Via.

Love at first listen

2026-05-26T00:00:05+00:00

Sometimes you come across a tune and you instantly know. It will be a combination of the melody, the instrumentation, the vocals and the lyrics. And everything else that makes music unique.

Came across Rattlesnake Milk today and it was love at first listen. Both their albums (from Bandcamp and Qobuz).

While listening I looked up their upcoming tour dates. Was mightily disappointed discovering that they're coming to Norway in the fall, but won't be playing in Oslo! Can we get someone on this asap?!

Nine

2026-06-11T00:00:04+00:00

Once more I can't believe another year has passed.

I feel like the speed of time has increased tenfold. It was only just yesterday that I sat down with little time to spare to collect my thoughts about what should've been your eight birthday? Yet, here we are, on the day that you should have turned nine.

Your little brother and little sister and growing up so fast. Too fast. Every day they are out and about, attending one thing or another. He plays football, handball and gymnastics. She takes dance and ballet classes, and gymnastics too, of course. I do the best I can to help them navigate everything. As does your mother. Sometimes I feel like it's my responsibility to help them find their calling in life, and master it. But I know that the best I can do is be their number one fan in whatever they are doing. So I try to limit my role to that. And the driving to and driving from. And packing bags, filling bottles, buying shoes, making sure nobody forgets their hairbands (I really need to learn how to braid hair, I'm sure if you were here I'd know it already) and a hundred other little things.

That's life right now. It passes at a hundred kilometres per hour. Not so much because I am so busy, I think, but because I am enjoying every moment of it. Even if it is hard sometimes, watching them grow, physically, mentally and socially, into something resembling complete human beings is more rewarding than anything else I have ever experienced. By an infinite margin.

Thinking about how you should have been even further down the line makes me sad. Angry, too. What would you have liked, I wonder? Would you have been a sports girl, like your brother, or musical dance girl, like your sister? Who of the kids I that would have been your classmates would have been your friends? I wondered that as we all went to an end of the school year party at the school tonight, and I saw your class perform a dance.

The weather was great. I overdressed, and felt a little scorched. Your sister did, too. We didn't have time for our usual celebration of your birthday on account of the school party. It made me feel a little guilty. But your sister and I visited your grave and lit a candle. We'll do the other rituals this weekend instead.

I know you won't mind.

Miss you.

The economics of AI explained

2026-06-12T00:00:03+00:00

Andrew Singleton in AI Economics for Dummies at McSweeney’s Internet Tendency:

Benjamin owns a farm. He employs 100 workers plowing his fields. His total payroll is $10 million/year. One day, he buys a mule, which provides the worker who uses it with a modest 10 percent productivity gain. Benjamin fires 99 of his workers and purchases 99 mules, expecting a 1,000 percent productivity gain. The driverless mules cause plow damage to his property in excess of $50 million. Benjamin loses another $5 million due to the loss of productivity from his one remaining employee, who no longer guides a plow but instead spends 100 percent of his time shoveling mule shit. Goldman Sachs builds an altar to Benjamin in their lobby and cuts out the heart of a junior analyst on it every Friday. They call it “Blood Sacrifice Friday.” The name isn’t catchy, but the event becomes a management favorite nonetheless.

I try to keep it light on the AI stuff these days, because oh my god it is everywhere and it bores me to death, but this it too good.

Via.

What's up, July 2026 edition

2026-07-21T00:00:02+00:00

Well, it's been a while.

It's not that I haven't had the time to post. It's just that I sort of fell off the wagon and stopped writing and posting regularly. That's something I want to remedy, because both are positive habits that make me feel better about myself. So, instead of procrastinating while waiting for the perfect ‘I'm back!’ post to be delivered through divine intervention directly to my brain (I'll be honest, I've already tried that approach for a couple of months and it's been less than productive) I thought I'd just rip off the band aid and get back to posting with a simple update on what I've been doing lately.

That said, life's been hectic. Chaotic, even! In one of the few posts that I did manage to publish recently, I wrote that ‘I feel like the speed of time has increased tenfold’ and that feels like an accurate summary of the last year. The kids keep growing up, and as they do they become more active. And as I try to keep up with them, time flies.

The odd thing is that, even if it feels like time goes by faster than ever, I somehow feel that I have more of it to spend as I please than I've had in many years. The other side of the coin of the kids growing up, I suppose. Whereas before they needed me (or their mum) present and ready to go at all times, they now keep themselves (relatively) safe and occupied longer and more frequently for each passing day. Oh, make no mistake, they are still annoying little things that hang on to our coattails in idleness as if their sole purpose was to prevent us from getting anything at all done. But then they suddenly disappear for an hour or two, and before you know it you're wondering where did the good, old days when they always wanted you around go? While these moments are just small pockets in an otherwise busy and demanding and rewarding life with my children right now, they are foreshadowing of what's to come.

Getting back to the point, I now have more time to do with as I please than I have in years. And here are some of the things I've been doing with that time in the past half year or so.

Working out

Won't go into the the details – you can find all of them in the workout log which I update every single day. If I work out on the day, which I still aim to do every day. While my overarching goal is still to stay healthy and keep my body in decent shape, I have been trying to improve my running fitness a bit over the past year.

Inspired by other people from around the web, I've wanted to see if it was possible to get back into peak running shape by training in a different way than I did during my marathon running days. So far, the answer is no. I've not been able to train with the required consistency to get anywhere close. Instead, as confirmed by a 5k race I ran recently, I've only been able to maintain fitness since last summer.

There are many things I could point to as reasons, but the cold truth is that it comes down to priorities. And the past year I've not prioritised running fitness. Other things have taken priority, in particular maintaining a healthy weight and participating in social events that disrupt the rhythm of both training and recovery. As my years of being young and promising are now behind me, I notice that these priorities come with a cost in terms of fitness.

And, being honest, it is a price that I am quite comfortable paying.

Entertainment

The reading log contains all the details of my reading. I won't bore you with all of it here.

I've been continuing to read books regularly, as I have for quite a few years now. Fantasy is still my go to for entertainment and relaxation. Right now I am reading the third book of the fourth of five trilogies (the fourth is actually a tetralogy) of Robin Hobb's Realm of the Elderlings. It is enjoyable reading. I am also trying to venture outside of my comfort zone. Reading about Basho and the history of Haiku poetry was an attempt to do just that, as was reading Seneca's letters and a biologist's diary of attempting to encounter a wolverine in the wild.

What's changed over the past year is that I've branched out from just reading books for entertainment. I've rediscovered the joy of watching movies! Some time between watching shows (and then sort of just quitting) and reading books, I lost simply stopped watching movies. Perhaps not following ‘the scene’ as much as I used to back when I had more time meant that I didn't discover the interesting movies that were being made.

Either way, at some point this winter I felt the urge to watch a movie. So I did. And it made me want to watch another. Now I've settled into the routine of Friday nights being movie nights. And I like it! A decade of barely watching movies has given me a lot of material to feast upon. Some highlights so far are Sinners (good), Triangle of Sadness (also good) and Train Dreams (fantastic).

Yet, the highlight is a rewatch. Watching Interstellar again, more than a decade after the initial release, was a profound experience. It was, and remains, one of my favourite films of all time.

As my son continues to develop his interest in football (or soccer, as the yanks say) it has rekindled my own fascination for the beautiful game. We've watched most of Manchester United's games the past season. When the World Cup rolled around this summer, our enthusiasm didn't exactly wane. Add to that the fact that Norway were finally back in the good company, and had an all time campaign as they reached the quarter finals, I've been lucky to share many memorable football moments with both my family and friends this summer.

One of the many reasons why I love sports!

Work

Two years after moving into a role as a Sales Manager Web for Obs, I transitioned to yet another new role this summer. It is my third role change in five years at Coop. I am now employed as an E-commerce Specialist for Obs BYGG.

My day-to-day tasks are much the same, while my overall responsibilities have changed a little. The new role is slightly more specialised and tailored to my strengths. Nevertheless, I found the circumstances of my previous role quite satisfactory, and the reasons for the change were mostly practical. Reducing my commute a few days per week from dreadful to next to non-existent chief among them.

I am happy that I've been able to improve my circumstance without having to change companies. Coop is a stable employer that focuses on provide opportunities for growth and contribution for its employees, and a place that I am happy to remain. A month into my new role, I now see myself staying both in the role and in the company for many years to come. Better yet, I think I'll be able to contribute to the company in a positive manner.

Social life

As I noted in regards to my workouts, I've been happy to participate in more social events than I've done previously. One of the good things about working offers plenty of opportunities to hang out with cool people, and I've take more of these opportunities recently.

I've also attended a couple of concerts this spring, and added three more to the calendar this fall. Live music is another thing that fell of the list of priorities during the most busy years with the kids and training for marathons, that I am now happy to have rediscovered. As the concert experience usually involves a couple of beers to make it even more enjoyable, it certainly isn't a boon for my fitness.

This summer, we also went on vacation with two of my best friends and their families. Making that happen involved us spending quite a few of our vacation days in the car, as we travelled to and from the chosen location. It was all worth it! Seeing your kids become friends and have the time of their lives with your friends' kids is a something special. I hope we can do it again the next couple of years.

Tech things

A few changes here and there, if nothing big. The setup for this website remains mostly the same (documented in detail through a series of posts). When I deleted my Strava account, I exported all of my data. I've imported the workout titles and notes to backfill the workout log with these details for all sessions prior to late 2025, when I began making notes here. The result is that most sessions now contain commentary.

Last year I wrote about building a digital music library. The journey has continued this year, though I've mostly purchased digital music directly. As of now, my modest library consists of 1 030 songs from 97 albums by 67 different artists. I've settled into mainly adding new (to me, I'm very unconcerned about release times) records as I discover them, my library of owned music accounts for the vast majority of my listening. That's something! I would like to write about the music I purchase and listen to, as well as add a way to showcase my library and/or my listening history on the site.

I've also splurged on some new items this year. Not just one, but two sets of headphones: Sony WH-1000XM5 and Powerbeats Pro 2. Different use cases, in theory, but I'm not sure if buying both was worth it. Especially as I found my presumably lost Airpod that prompted me to purchase the Powerbeats… Ah, well. A topic for an upcoming post!

The other purchase I've made is the Polar Loop. I've been wanting to give overnight HRV measuring a go for a while now, to see if this data can help me inform my workout planning to help me be more consistent over time. One option was replacing my nearly decade old Garmin. It was an expensive option. Then there's the fact that I also prefer to wear a plain, old ‘dumb’ watch with actual dial and hands. Polar's subscription free band was a nice and relatively cheap compromise. I definitely need to write a post about how I'm collecting and using the data.

Wrapping up

There are many additional topics I could have covered here. As I'm closing in on two thousand words already, I'm just going to leave it here. If you made it all the way through, congratulations!

Oh and by the way: If I owe you an email, I'll get right to it. Any day now. Probably!

How Brian Eno Created Ambient 1: Music For Airports

2026-07-22T00:00:01+00:00

Dan Carr in How Brian Eno Created Ambient 1: Music For Airports:

In this article, I’ll discuss how Music for Airports was created, and I’ll deconstruct and recreate the tracks 2/1 and 1/2. Hopefully, the article will demystify some of Brian Eno’s techniques, and give you some ideas about how to adopt some of his ambient music techniques yourself.

Wow! This was a fantastic write-up of how Brian Eno went about creating the ‘first’ work of ambient music. Seeing it written down like this, it seems a lot less mysterious than I would've thought.

End of the day, it seems to me that Eno was a guy who fucked around, and found out. And boy am I glad he did, because Music For Airports is still my number one choice for when I'm working and writing.

Via.

Testing shortcut from mobile

2026-08-12T00:00:00+00:00

Does this thing still work?