Hello, !

Never knew what "shalom" actually meant in Hebrew, but this greeting which is used as "hello" or "goodbye" literally means "peace" and is similar in meaning and use to the Arabic word "Salaam". Who knew?

It's been a heavy week of after hours work the past week. I was doing my work timesheets and realised JUST how much on-call work I had been doing. No wonder I was tired!

Before I go on, a small ask (as always!). If you have a friend who you think would enjoy the this email, maybe forward it on? It helps A LOT! If you're the friend reading this, click the link below to join! Glad to have you here!

In this week's email...

• Week in the Life - read on the blog
• Read - The 4 hour work week
• Listen - EP 004 - The vegetarian who likes lamb
• Gadgets & things - Prepd skillet & my favourite things
• Watch - How to Achieve Your Most Ambitious Goals
• Quote - “Read the Best 100 Books Over and Over Again”

Week in the life

After the last fortnight where after hours work reigned supreme, I decided to not do any extra work and turn off my phone this weekend. It's been blissful!

We recorded a new episode of the randInt() podcast and I finally am getting on top of the various workflows required. One thing I'm realising is that all these "little hobby projects" are starting to add up to a LOT of time required.

Take this newsletter for example. So far, I've spent about 1.5hrs going through my notes and finding something interesting and useful. Then taking the images, uploading and formatting takes another half hour or so. Finally, I write this section which takes about another 30mins to do. So in total, somewhere between 2-4hrs every weekend.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the process and especially love getting feedback via email or in person a lot. This plus the recording, editing and uploading of podcasts and random videos has meant that my primary "hobby" of photography has not received as much attention lately. I'll have to find a way to rebalance these things...

On the note of rebalancing, after taking some time and catching up on sleep, I'm finally out running again and therefore taking photos too. Melbourne has had quite a variety of photo conditions lately with a lazy Autumn haze on Friday morning, warm weather on Saturday turning into the rain as I write this. It's been good for variety of photos!

Chandra received his DJI FPV drone this week too. We had to take it for a spin, but more on that over in the blog...

PxR / randInt() update

randInt() podcast on YouTube

https://www.photosbyraffy.com/randintyoutube

This week has been focused on getting the last part of the randInt() puzzle up and running: the YouTube channel. It's finally up so you can watch along if you like instead of just listening.

I generally didn't think this would be useful, but it seems like some people do actually prefer to watch 2 people chatting instead of just listening, so this is for all of you!

Gadgets & tech

Instead of new gadgets, I thought I'd list some of the one from recent that I liked. Also, a few people seemed to like cast iron pans but the last Kickstarter I mentioned had a horrendously expensive shipping. There must've been some development in metals because now there is another one doing something similar with far cheaper shipping. I wont be backing that one (since I only need 2 pans!) but check out Prepd skillet if you're interested in a cheaper one.

Floately levitating plants - Probably my favourite "random" purchase of the last year. I have some succulents suspended in mid-air as you walk into the apartment as well as another one next to my bed. There's something amazing about watching a plant hover in mid air

Ember Smart Coffee Mug 2 - a bit pricier than the Bolt, but the one that's on my desk right now. It's just nice having hot coffee for an extended period of time! Didn't think I'd like it as much as I do!

Matte Black/Silver Fountain Pen - These came last week & I'm a fan, especially the silver one. At ~$25, the pens are great with the right amount of weight. If you've written with expensive fountain pens, you'll notice that the difference in nibs, but for the price they're great to use day-to-day.

DJI Mini 2 - I've stopped carrying my Mavic 2 Pro just because this is such a small, quiet and convenient drone. It's easy to fly and takes excellent pics. Best of all, it charges over USB-C so no need for a ton of chargers!

Read

The 4 hour work week

https://amzn.to/30HINB2

I'm revisiting old classics and this book had quite an influential impact. While it has a title that sounds like a get rich quick scheme, the principles contained were a profound revelation at the time I read this. The essence of it is cutting through the unnecessary and focusing on the essentials of any task so that you get better agency of your most limited resource, time.

It's a pretty cheap Kindle read, but I decided to order the hardcover since I'm going to try and physically keep books that I really found impactful.

Listen

EP 004 - The vegetarian who likes lamb (~52mins)

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6Yrl82BrhFZ7zPu4YykCuG?si=xerIxj14SFGkVTLlRLs-tg

This will be the last time I link to the randInt podcast for a little while, but after going through format, audio quality and general teething issues, this finally feels like it's a good example of what you can expect from our podcast going forward.

So if you haven't yet, give it a listen! It's the newest project so far and I'd love to hear the feedback good or bad!

Watch

Stephen Duneier - How to Achieve Your Most Ambitious Goals (~17min)

https://youtu.be/TQMbvJNRpLE

I'm going through some old videos I used to really like and this one is great! It's about a guy who basically failed at primary school and started to focus on small incremental changes to achieve a lot of his ambitious goals.

It really reinforces the fact that most things may seem like they require a giant bolt of inspiration or super human ability but are mostly due to incremental change instead.

Quote I'm pondering

“Read the Best 100 Books Over and Over Again”

-Naval

This was a blog post by Naval Ravikant, whom I've mentioned before on the newsletter and seemed to fit my current obsession of going over old books and videos that I thought were good. He does have a point here: there's only ever a few "great" things so there's probably more value in re-reading them than going for sheer volume.

I find it amusing that so many little principles of life apply on so many facets repeatedly. This time, it's the whole quality over quantity thing...

Truly random

• The Box- I'm not sure what to call this apart from a "short story" again from Naval's blog. Like Murakami from last week, the passage here, to me at least, is just outside my realm of comprehension. I've re-read this a few times and each time I notice something different. It's almost a puzzle...

Hope you enjoyed the Sunday Surprise! As always, stay safe and stay random!

- Raffy

PS- It's my birthday next week and I was going to do that Facebook thing and donate to charity. Any you would recommend? Email me!

Sunday Surprise uses affiliate/referral links in the newsletter. While this does not influence the product recommendations or verdict, if there are any that are likely to lead to Photos by Raffy receiving any sort of compensation from, they will be marked in orange. Non affiliate links will appear as blue.