Egads! !

I always thought "egads" it was some modern millenial term but turns out it's an old English term expressing surprise! This is the latest newsletter to date which is a result of 4 busy on calls in 7 days in addition to lots of late finishes!

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In this week's email...

• Week in the Life - read on the blog
• Creative Update - Instagram
• Gadgets/Tech - Various
• Listen - Tim Ferriss: How Jane McGonigal predicted Covid-19 in 2010
• Watch - Jailed for climbing The Shard
• Quote - 'The belief that the world is getting worse, that we can’t solve extreme poverty and disease, isn’t just mistaken. It’s harmful.'

Week in the life

After a lovely weekend off last weekend, it's been a bit of a grinding slog this week. It looked like it'd be busy with 4 on calls in 7 days but I didn't expect this! As I write this it's just past midnight and I'm in hospital waiting to hear if we're going to bring a sick ICU patient into theatre.

Scratch that... as I was typing that, I got the call that the plans changed and we're off to stop the bleeding using interventional radiology. More on the adventures of on call this week over on the blog...

Creative update

Instagram

Apart from the Instagram posts, I really haven't had much time at all to do any kind of creative stuff. We have recorded the next episode of the randInt podcast which should be out in the next 24 hrs (when I get a chance to edit it!).

While I knew it was going to be a busy week, I didn't expect it to be this heavy! As per the weekly summary, it's cramped what I've been able to do creatively.

Gadgets/Tech

To be honest, the most interesting things I've found this week have been some Kickstarter/Crowdfunding projects. The stuff I usually put on here is normally things that I've personally ordered or things that have a good track record and given the lack of time, I'll like to some of the cool ones, but this week, you may need to look into it further before you decide to take the plunge...

• Dwarf II - Smart portable telescope - Some of my friends have been getting into astrophotography and this device looked like a cheaper and easier way to peer into space...
• Nanobags - Super thin grocery bags - I bought a few of these when the version1.0 came out and they're AWESOME. They're made from the same light weight material as parachutes so they pack away taking up no space or weight but can hold a ton.
• Dusk - adjustable darkness sunglasses - These sunnies are pretty cool! They're transparent but have electrochromatic glass that changes to different levels of darkness at the tap of a button

Previously mentioned gadgets

• ZeroCo - Refillable everyday cleaning products that save a ton of plastic!
• WordClock - One of the coolest designer clocks out there for your wall.

Listen

Tim Ferriss: How Jane McGonigal predicted Covid-19 in 2010

This was a fascinating podcast into the work that futurists do and how it has some concrete impact on day to day living.

Til now, I imagined that they were some version of sci-fi writers focused on imagined futures. Turns out, that's only part of the truth and reality is that they can come up with some very interesting data points.

What I'm reading now

• Q Anon and on - Minimal progress over here this week, hoping the next few days allow for more reading time,

Watch

Jailed for climbing The Shard

Ok, so you could never pay me enough to do this! This guy made an extreme hobby/career out of climbing super tall buildings with no safety gear what so ever. This is a short video looking into the motivations behind doing such stunts. If nothing else, the POV from the GoPros made my stomach churn!

Quote I'm pondering

“The belief that the world is getting worse, that we can’t solve extreme poverty and disease, isn’t just mistaken. It’s harmful.”

– Bill Gates

As someone who generally tends to be a bit of a cynic, I find this point of view to be fascinating. If you read around this topic on what various people who have made significant strides in their field say, it basically boils down to cynicism and pessimism are very much the "default" response. Humans are wired to notice the negative, but in doing so, we might miss out on taking chances that lead to great discoveries and in turn, this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

That's the harm that Bill Gates is talking about. I never really thought about cynicism in any way other than as humour, but I suppose I'll have to change my ways. Also, on the specific topics of poverty and disease, the general trend is finding more solutions to those problems so he's definitely on to something there!

, thanks for joining me on a very late newsletter! See you soon in just a few days for an actual Sunday Surprise!

Cheerio!

- Raffy

PS - What was your favourite part of the email this week? Do you like/dislike the subtle changes this year? Let me know with 1 click! I read the survey every week (& keep tweaking things with your feedback!)

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