Chutoor hastee? ?

That would be "how are you" in Afghani. After seeing the images from the country several weeks ago, I thought it deserved a small feature on the greetings. Sorry about the late email- I had a last minute covid-19 exposure scare and had to run around finding a testing site.

As always, a small favour? Could you forward this newsletter to just 3 people that you think would like one of the articles? 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
• Creative - randInt() EP015 Old Cevice and this is water (44 mins)
• Gadgets & Tech - Bottle+ sparkling water anywhere
• Read - Storyworthy
• Watch - Humans just generated nuclear energy akin to a star (~6min)
• Quote - The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them

Week in the life

This week has been quite nice: it's been full of variety (well, as much as possible in lockdown) with work at a few different places, meetings and zoom calls. Normally, it's mostly clinical work.

I made it out to one of my favourite hospitals and made the most of an early morning finish to go for a quick walk along the beach. It may seem a small thing, but given people in Melbourne have been in 5km bubbles, I was just glad to see a change in scenery!

I'd never really done opinion survey things for medical products but this week, I had a ONE HOUR survey on IV cannulas. I didn't think there was that much to talk about with regards to them, but we ran over time! Good thing they're sending a voucher! It was actually pretty fun. Turns out, if asked, you can have opinions about all sorts of things even if it's a simple IV cannula. I didn't realise I was such a diva about it...

I also did a couple of courses this week. One was an MBA in half a day. Totally oversold on the premise, but was quite interesting to learn what a board member does and other various things I had never considered. I had some company from the cats, but more on that over on the blog...

Creative update

randInt() EP015 Old Cevice and this is water (44 mins)

https://anchor.fm/randint

Another episode of the podcast is up! This was the longest minisode, but I think we're getting better at not rambling off into tangents too much.

This conversation bordered on being too sensible. Chandra re-read a book. If you know Chandra, you should know that this never happens! I talked about a talk that I listen to almost every 6 months...

Gadgets & Tech

Bottle+ sparkling water anywhere

http://u-98utn.fnd.to/bottleplus

Never have I felt like a Kickstarter was made just for me! I LOVE sparkling water but hate the thought of all the plastic to buy it. I nearly ended up getting the portable carbonators but the CO2 cartridges pose the same problem. Enter the Bottle+ with its repressurised base and the ability to make 6 bottles of sparkling water from one charge. Best of all, it's powered from a Sodastream like cannister that's reusable!

• Aeropress Go - If you're after one of the tiniest ways of making great coffee, this is it!
• Matt Black Fountain Pens - My current favourite "everyday" fountain pens that I use it work. Best of all, hardly anyone has the inks so no one steals them! Most people know I'm the fountain pen guy, so they also always seem to return them if they borrow it 😂

Read

Humans just generated nuclear energy akin to a star (~6min)

https://www.popsci.com/science/nuclear-fusion-successful-ignition/

All the talk of nuclear reactors talk about nuclear fission (ie splitting the atom). Our sun and other stars work slightly differently as fusion reactors. While I don't know the technical details of it all, I know that fusion has been the holy grail and humanity has achieved a breakthrough in literally being able to have a mini star to power our energy needs!

Book I'm currently reading

• Storyworthy - Quite a decent book on who to story tell better. Strangely applicable to many fields as you'll find out after chapter 1 and 2

Watch

996 Work culture(~16min)

https://youtu.be/l8wWoQ3_F00

Often I'll have a whinge about working too much or too long. Then you come across videos like this describing China's work conditions especially in their new tech industry and realise you may have a lot to be thankful for.

It goes a long way to explain how the country has been able to accelerate so quickly in so many fields, but at a definite cost...

Quote I'm pondering

“The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them.”

- Paulo Coelho

Another 'little moments' quote this week. I have to say that that's been the running theme this month: paying attention to the small things. As I said in the weekly summary, I finally got around to tidying my house up after a few weeks today. There's something oddly satisfying about not seeing the boxes I meant to put away ages ago but didn't get around to til today.

It's such a simple chore, but it really does feel freeing. Is there some small thing you've been putting off?

Well , that's all for this week! Let me know what you thought as feedback is always welcome!

Have a fantastic week ahead!

- Raffy

PS - What was your favourite part of the email? Let me know with 1 click! Every week I'll go and check the feedback and tweak things as requested!

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