Howdy, !

Hope you're having a great weekend so far! What are you getting up to? I need to live vicariously as I'll be likely on-call as you're reading this. So, do let me know what exciting plans you have!

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In this week's email...

• Week in the Life - read on the blog
• Creative Update - Getting started with Getting Things Done
• Gadgets & Tech - Tales of Khayaal
• Read?Listen - Dune: The Deeper Dimension
• Watch - Chromostereopsis
• Quote - "People have to learn to disagree in this country and not hate for it..."

Week in the life

The bit of relative quiet from the state declared Code Brown (basically, health system overwhelmed so only Emergency cases considered) in Victoria is rapidly easing. It's noticeably busier at work now and the phone calls are coming hard and fast about the upcoming weeks.

This bit of spare time allowed me to look back at my calendar and see why the lack of breaks became such an issue: turns out I was working around 50-60 hrs every week on average! No wonder it started to feel like a bit of a grind by the end of it!

After the list last Sunday, I was meant to go off to Bell's Beach to fly the drone. I did manage to get out there but it was VERY windy. So I took off and flew for literally 5 mins and had to land.

It was a lovely sunset to listen to the waves and watch the colours. I think I'll have to head back out there one of these weekends to enjoy. More on future plans over on the blog...

Creative update

Getting started with Getting Things Done

Another Medium article this week summarising the book "Getting Things Done" into what I took away from it.

I'm going to do more of these in the future to absorb the material more since it makes me think about all the concepts and the ones I found most valuable.

If you haven't read the book, it's essentially a way of organising your life into a very effective "to do" system. Can be a bit dry, but the principles have been useful for me,

Gadgets & Tech

Tales of Khayaal

This one's a bit different to what I normally feature on here. It's essentially a Kickstarter-esque project that I'll be supporting.

At it's core, it's a design studio that is making art/graphic novel with some Islamic concepts set in the future. It's pretty early in the development, but I'm excited that these things are coming.

Growing up, I saw a whole bunch of movies like Home Alone and the Disney cartoons but as someone growing up in another culture, a whole bunch of the essence of it all seemed a bit foreign. I'm glad the modern media is embracing showing the range of different ways people live and this is another avenue.

Even if you're not Muslim, maybe consider finding some media projects about a relative minority that you would like to support and find media projects exploring their views. I know I would've appreciated something like this when I was growing up.

Other gadgets

• Samsung S22 Ultra - After skipping the Note series last year, Samsung has essentially replaced that with the S22 Ultra, the most spec'd out Android phone with a stylus built in! I've been using the S21 with stylus tucked into a case for the last year and I cant WAIT to go back to the Note form factor!
• Matte Black Fountain Pen - If you're looking for an inexpensive but decent fountain pen, these ones are my favourite. I've bought multiple and for the price, I don't think you can do better.

Read/Listen

Dune: The Deeper Dimension

I mentioned I finally got around to reading Dune recently and a friend suggested certain aspects were copied from Arabian culture/Islam. While interesting, I didn't pay much thought to it.

This podcast was shared by Tim Ferriss in his newsletter that goes and explores exactly that. Given this newsletter has taken a more "alternative cultures in media" turn, thought I'd reshare from Ferriss' newsletter here.

While I found it pretty interesting, even as a religious person, I am very much cynical in ascribing as much importance to events as the podcast does.

Watch

Chromostereopsis

Not so much a video to watch, but rather a peculiar effect with vision in this article and explanation. Recenty, the Google Chrome logo was changed (very minimally) after 8 years and it the internet took to mocking it.

I was reading about the design process, thinking how much of a process could there be for removing the subtle shadows and it turns out, the designers look through a bunch of feed back in even selecting a shade of a colour. One of the effects that the logo allegedly previously produced was the one linked above. Still don't see why it took 8 years, but good to know that someone pays attention to the tiniest of details.

Quote I'm pondering

“People have to learn to disagree in this country and not hate for it...”

– Bill Maher

Well, I didn't expect this week's quote to be coming from a late night comedy segment but as I rode the exercise bike at the gym, this line stood out to me from a Real Time with Bill Maher segment. The segment is mostly about how the concept of "Karma" has been misconstrued over time but quickly morphs into him just defending people who disagree with him.

It hit home for me because everything seems to be turning into some sort of "game" with hidden points attached. I am right, you are wrong means +1 score for me etc. In truth lot of issues are complicated and don't have right answers, which means thinking in binary is counter-productive and down right dangerous.

Just as an experiment (and also to stuff up any big tech algorithm), I suggest going and looking up the opposite spectrum from where you sit. For me, this means watching clips of Tucker Carlson. If you're more conservative, maybe watch for Bill Maher. What I've realised is that while entertainers in all corners exaggerate issues, there's real issues on ALL sides and as we slip into bubbles, we hardly see eye to eye anymore...

Anyway, on that more sombre note, that's it for another week ! Hope you're enjoying the rest of the weekend. As always, I simply LOVE hearing from you and your opinions. Feedback is always welcome!

Stay random!

- 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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