Howdy, !

A tad bit delayed this week. The usual reasons, but also, I just wanted to see if anyone noticed the lateness! Turns out, I DID get a couple of messages this morning about the missing email so there ya go! Just checking who's reading 😅

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Week in the life

This week felt like I had gone back and never had a break at all. Good thing that my normal cadence of travel is back and I'll be away again in just over a week. Also, some flight credits were expiring so I have even planned out my new years trip!

I've realised that having breaks and trips booked in to look forward to has to be one of the best tricks to get through heavy work periods. This week would've felt horrible if I didn't have something coming up so soon. The other interesting thing I realised is that it creates a sense of urgency: because I'll be away, I have to get my act together and be more organised than if I had just been on a day to day schedule.

In other news, we had a total lunar eclipse in Melbourne. I forgot all about it and was out for a run when I saw the scene above. More on all that over on the blog...

(correct link this week! Sorry about last week - sent you all to the photosbyraffy.com website where the blog used to be!)

Creative update

PxR 2023 Photo Calendar

We had a couple of issues with resolution and sharpness which are essentially resolved so the final images are now set! This is the back cover of the calendar and I'm hoping to finalise the print design by the end of the week and send it for printing. Still about a week left if you'd like to grab one, use the code PREORDER to get 10% off.

Gadgets/Tech

Manta Sleep

So I thought I had pretty good blinds in my house, but the difference wearing an eye shade makes to my sleep is insane! I've had a whole bunch of ones from trips in the past but they'd either slip or be annoying around the ears. After a lot of internet sleuthing, this is the one I ordered.

Other gadgets/tech

• USB heated coffee mug - If you're like me an keep forgetting about your coffee til it's cold, this might be the gadget for you!
• Kindle Scribe - Ebook reader and general writing pad with weeks long battery life. I want!

Read

Knowledge is power, France is bacon

This meme has supposedly been going since 2010 but I've only just seen it. The story behind it is quite funny and goes to show just how long things can go on if you don't question the unusual...

Currently reading...

• The Myth of Normal - Ok, I'm not really a huge fan of the style of writing of this book hence I'm taking it in short bits and it's taken me a while to get through, but I do actually find the subject matter quite good.

Watch

The Fall of 76

Not sure if this video will be the one for you but this channel is just so entertaining! Internet historian is an Australian based channel that delves into some quirky events and presents it in the most amusing manner. The Fall of 76 is about a computer game that I've never played and was so entertaining that I ended up watching the whole thing anyway!

Quote I'm pondering

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

— George Shaw

This is a quote that's been on my mind a lot for the past several years. You can kinda see it in action in the world today. Let's take the example of Elon Musk- I know, I know, he's wacky guy but also quite unreasonable in terms of the tasks he sets out to achieve...

He gets rich from helping start Paypal, but then decides that a few things are holding humanity back: sustainable energy, transport and the ability to travel into space. Now, he's not an engineer per se. That doesn't stop him- he goes on to build Tesla Motors, Tesla Energy and Space X. Along the way, he decides traffic is bad...so tunnels? And internet is too slow in the US...so satellites?

Now he's one eccentric character, but he's also genuinely unreasonable in that conventional wisdom should have already had him fail by now. Instead,I'd argue he's single-handedly kickstarted electric transport and put space faring as an agenda for the world.

He's just one example: Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and even Zuckerberg set out some pretty audacious goals and... managed to hit them.

So are you being unreasonable enough?

Til next time, stay safe!

- Raffy

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