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Modern smartphones retain the name of the tool they were initially designed as, phones. The irony is that making traditional phone calls probably makes up only a tiny fraction of what most people use their phones for these days. If you’re an iPhone user, have a look at your Screen Time to get a more accurate sense of how you actually use your phone. If I had to guess, social media, video streaming, and messaging top the list, and perhaps in quantities that you would be a little embarrassed to admit....

As it currently stands, I pay for two AI services, ChatGPT Plus and GitHub's Co-Pilot but this number will surely increase in the coming months and years. I think the term “co-pilot” perfectly captures the current relationship; these are tools that help me automate some of the boring or tedious tasks while also acting as an assistant that I can use to bounce ideas off. Recently, while working on a side project, I needed a real URL for some testing....

Photo by Nils Rasmusson on Unsplash Forest fires bring death and destruction, yet they also catalyze the birth of new plant life. The fire clears the overcrowded underbrush to create space and opportunities for the next generation, a cycle necessary for the health of the forest. However, like so many things, the quantity matters. Too little fire and not enough space is created for the next generation, while on the other hand, too much fire and the entire forest burns down....

eskild.art is now live! I have plenty of ideas on what this might morph into but for now, it’s simply a gallery. Can you solve the riddle to view the image?

When this blog first launched in 2019, I decided the quickest and easiest way to get started was to use Squarespace. I don’t think I was wrong but as my desire for more control over the site grew, a change was needed. Introducing eskild.blog, now built using Hugo and hosted on GitHub Pages. Since I’m not quite ready to build my site from scratch, I figured using a static site generator would give me the control I wanted without the additional maintenance burden that comes with managing a full-fledged, dynamic website....

The desert is an unlikely home for a tree, yet in the Mojave Desert of the US southwest, you will find a strange and sharply unique tree, straight from another planet, the Joshua Tree (Yucca Brevifolia). Joshua Tree National Park, located two hours east of Los Angeles, is the perfect destination to appreciate these exceptional trees while they are still here. Due to a variety of factors, which naturally includes a rapidly changing climate, the long-term survival of the Joshua Tree is in jeopardy....

Photo by Katelynn Ruffner We hear about the rainforest and are reminded of the important role trees play as a global carbon sink, breathing in carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen through a process known as photosynthesis. We have also known for millennia that some trees produce tasty fruit while others provide wonderful building materials, such as the orange and pine trees respectively. And a stroll through any forest forces us to appreciate how vital trees are to their ecosystem....

I catch a familiar scent of orange blossom as I walk around my neighborhood, a scent I can’t help but associate with spring and summer at my grandma’s house. I spent nearly every childhood summer at her place, a reprieve from having spent the previous ten, much colder, months in northern Europe. Her orange tree represented the hot California sun, with oranges the color to match. A tall glass of her hand-squeezed orange juice on a hot and dry summer day rejuvenates the body with every sweet and delightful sip....

The Great Basin Bristlecone Pine in the White Mountains (CA) photo by Tim Peterson Scattered atop a few of the high mountains of California, Nevada and Utah, sits an extremely special tree, the Great Basin Bristlecone Pine (Pinus longaeva). Rooted in rocky and dry soil, they grow slowly and in isolation. Widely considered one of the longest-lived sexually reproducing, non-clonal organisms on earth, their long lifecycle has been instrumental to the scientific community....

Big Berried Manzanita (NPS) On the morning of Thanksgiving 2020, my roommate and I eagerly made our way up Condor Gulch trail to marvel at the rock formations this under-appreciated park was known for. And as the sun rose and the morning chill subsided, we took a break to remove some layers, when we realized we were in the presence of a tree neither of us had ever seen before....