Hi !

How are you going? Can you believe it's the end of January already? As per one of the readers suggestions (Sally), we're going with Curatorial for this weeks name. Of the few that's been suggested, what's been your favourite? Cast your vote on the poll below. Should literally take less than 10seconds!

• Vote on the name for the newsletter!

Also, apologies that it's coming out on a Monday in Australia. The weekend was...busy! Details a bit further below.

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! You can even use your own referral link:

In this week's email...

• Week in the Life - read on the blog
• Read - The other superpowers calling the shots
• Gadgets & things - Pocket & ZeroCo
• Listen - randInt with Raffy & Chandra
• Quote - If you set your goals ridiculously high and it's a failure, you will fail above everyone else's success

Week in the life

This week has been a bit...random. That theme continues with a few new projects as you'll see below...

It was a short week here in Australia due to the (controversial) Australia Day holiday. That meant I had all of Tuesday off to have a rest. In typical fashion, it ended up being mostly housework and... starting a podcast! Yes, after months of pondering it, I started a podcast with Chandra. See below for more details, but essentially the first episode was done on a whim so we could get started and iterate on the format.

Turns out the world of podcasting has a bunch of new things to learn about audio mastering, sound effects and also distribution. Learning about all that has been the bulk of my spare time this past week.

The other part has been... doing VR tours. Yes, that's right: I'm A VR tour guide! Actually, it was an idea from ages ago for having orientations for our new trainee doctors available virtually so that they could look through at their leisure or if someone couldn't come to orientation, they wouldn't be disadvantaged. Since we're still taking Covid-19 precautions, it turned out that the department I work for liked the idea and have run with it! I'd link it here but a) it's not done (rendering as I write this at 0130am!) and b) privacy rules.

So it's Monday the 1st of Feb as I write this and boy did the weekend get busier! We had emergency cases galore and then was told that the VR orientation wasn't a "nice to have" but "essential" so went and spent most of the night editing and then rendering the video files. As much as I love my HP Spectre360, it wasn't designed to be a mobile rendering powerhouse! Did get there in the end though and everything was out in time, so whew!

PxR update & Winners!

PxR Store

https://www.photosbyraffy.com/shop

Well, competition is done and we have some winners! One of the people at work literally wouldn't sign up to the newsletter because I'd mentioned I might run a giveaway in the future.

Well, looks like it worked out for her. You've WON the puzzle Sally!

Also, I've never really liked competitions for the new people only so I ran a random use picker on everyone on the list too.

So, Misoe, you've WON 2021 Calendar! Congrats to both of you! Email me about how you'd like your prize delivered!

In photography news, I ended up getting a few commended, a highly commended and a top 30 image in the Australian Photography awards! I'll wait for a few more details and write more next week about it.

Gadgets & tech

ssdBox Wireless SSD

https://skybox-credit-card-size.kckb.st/photosbyraffy

I often go on a shoot and either run out of memory or I've forgotten to offload the previous shoot and end up sitting there having to go through and delete shots there and then, often missing the shots I wanted.

Enter ssdBox which promises to copy your card to the hard drive on the go! The great thing about this drive is that on paper at least, it's FAST, meaning it should be faster taking shots, copying to this and then transferring to your computer. Also, it supports wireless sync so you can be out and about and tranfer things to your phone or laptop with ease.

I just ordered mine today!

PREVIOUS/OTHER PRODUCTS

Some people keep asking about previous recommendations etc so I'm going to link a few that have come up in conversation in the last week below:

• Bolt heated coffee mug- Like the Ember mug, but without needing an app and also dishwasher safe!
• Floately floating planter - This is still awesome! Very much still enjoying my plants spin around weightlessly.
• AA USB Rechargeable battery - This looked pretty neat: a battery that has an USB plug to recharge! The capacity seems a bit low, but it is a lithium battery so should technically last more recharge cycles. Will be interesting to try out!

Read

The other superpowers calling the shots (~4mins)

https://www.smh.com.au/national/the-other-superpowers-calling-the-shots-20210128-p56xfp.html

I read this article on an Australian newspaper and found it quite thought provoking in terms of how the balance of power is change in the modern era.

Waleed Aly argues that until now, nation states have essentially had the highest form of power over the general public. With the rise of big tech and capitalism, this may no longer hold true...

Well worth the 5mins to read.

Listen

randInt with Raffy & Chandra (~20mins)

https://anchor.fm/randint

This week, I'm shamelessly plugging the podcast Chandra and I started. Because we had the Australia Day holiday, I thought we should just get started since we've talked about it for long enough.

Now, I warn you that it's a bit meandering and relatively unscripted (the script I refer to was literally a set of points I scribbled down 5 mins before hitting record!). That said, I think it's a good enough taste of things to come.

I'm collecting feedback and we may even re-record a version 1.1 to do a better job. If we do that, we'll still keep episode one. I kinda like how sloppy it is. Given most of the time, things never get started since I don't think I'll be able to produce it to a quality I like, this is evidence that I can get over perfectionism!

Quote I'm pondering

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.

– Mark Twain

With Covid limiting a lot of travel, this seemed like an apt reminder of why it's important. Apart from the recreation, I find it so eye opening and as Mr Twain has said, an important way to see how someone else does the same things, only differently.

Unlike what's reported in some media outlets, it's good to see that 57% of the Australian population have a passport (and the trend is going up) and so do 42% of Americans (far higher than 4% in 1990!). I hope it means a more peaceful world in the future...

Stay safe and stay random!

- Raffy

PS- Since podcasting is the newest project, I'd love for you to listen and send me any feedback you have! I've already started a log in Notion for the this project and am all ears so 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.