Bonswa !

That's "good evening" in Maltese. Melbourne has been out of lockdown for a few days now and I've spent the weekend going for walks and catching up on eating out. What have you been up to? Email me and let me know.

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 update - randInt EP 12 - Schadenfreude & time crystals (~60mins)
• Gadgets & Tech - Logitech Brio(~$280)
• Read - Show Your Work! (~$11)
• Watch - What are time crystals? (~6min)
• Random fact - QR codes were released decades ago (~3min)
• Quote - "A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials."

Week in the life

Ok, last week I'll wait for the prize winner to contact me. If you're reading this, an****71@gmail.com please send me an email to claim your prize! Otherwise, I'll be awarding it to the next person on the list who has read it.

This email is coming a bit later in the evening because yesterday I realised just how tired I was and decided to take it slow for this weekend. It turned out that I had worked 19 days in a row! Being lockdowns, the days tend to blend together and I really started to feel the fatigue half way through last week.

So this weekend, I did...nothing! I slept excessively, went for walks and caught up with friends. I even managed to make a Reel for Instagram of Melbourne slowly coming alive...

The rest of the weekend was spent recording the podcast and doing this email while watching the Olympics. I'm not really an avid sport watcher but I have to say, even I couldn't help but get involved in cheering our athletes on.

The cats have been loving having people around over the weekend. Because my housemate is over in Western Australia currently, I took the opportunity to air out the guest room. That meant that the cats had a new room to explore that's normally closed off.

Please ignore the mess: that room really isn't used at the moment. Now there is a surprise in the photo above, but more about that over on the blog...

Creative

randInt EP 12 - Schadenfreude & time crystals (~60mins)

https://anchor.fm/randint/episodes/EP-012---Schadenfreude-and-time-crystals-e15a3mn

It's that time again with randInt() being a released a day later than normal. This fortnightly cadence is tough to keep up!

This week, Chandra and I ramble on about how the last few weeks have been so different between the 2 states of WA and VIC, how we may be terrible people for all the schadenfreude recently and the bizarre sci-fi things that are time crystals.

Gadgets & Tech

Logitech Brio(~$280)

https://amzn.to/3ljW6mM

So turns out Tim Ferriss' newsletter featured the same thing that I was intending to do! I've used the built in webcams for the last few years and I have to say unless you tend to use a Surface or an iPad/M1 Mac, they're kinda all pretty bad.

This one has probably got the best reviews by far in terms of image quality and also for having built in mics. For Windows users, it features Windows Hello, which is essentially Face Unlock for Windows!

PREVIOUS/OTHER PRODUCTS

Some previous things that have been featured:

• Bellroy Key Holder- I use a little keywallet from these guys to keep my keys organised and not jingling in my pocket. They're a Melbourne company that's getting some international attention for making great products!
• Microsoft Surface Pro - If you're not running Mac, these PCs and laptops are probably the best you can get.

Read

Show Your Work! (~$11)

https://amzn.to/37dModu

I'm currently keeping with Austin Kleon's work with the second of his trilogy of books. They're pretty short and casual but pretty compelling.

This is the book that I've heard synopses of that's actually had the most impact on me recently. It talks about how the creative process is never really isolated from your environment and from your direct community. Being able to show how something is made or sharing work in progress is a GOOD thing.

For someone used to literally editing a photo pixel by pixel, it's taken a lot of unwinding to start things like this newsletter and podcast when I knew close to nothing about them, but it's been a great experience. So if you're wanting to do something but find yourself getting held back, check this book out.

Watch

What are time crystals? (~6min)

https://youtu.be/ucwmGZ51X7E

This is something I've read here and there for the past few years so it's interesting to see some new discoveries being made. This video gives you a little primer as to what they are. Once you've seen it, read the article below that highlights the latest development.

Essentially, time crystals are akin to a perpetual motion machine - something that keeps moving WITHOUT any additional energy. If true, this fundamentally alters how basic theories in physics. What I find cool about it is that it's something that been proven in theory and now we're going to go and try to create it for real. Not often you can say that a species goes about trying to break what's thought to be the fundamental laws of nature!

See Also

First "Time Crystal" built by Google's Quantum computer - It's a bit misleading since it's theoretical time crystal that has been built, but I still find the whole thing to be a step away from science fiction!

Random fact

QR codes were released decades ago (~3min)

https://www.qrcode.com/en/history/

QR codes have caught on in recent times like wildfire but did you know that its an invention that is decades old? Have a brief read about how it all came to be with their origin in Japan that was further advanced by Japanese car manufacturers

Quote I'm pondering

"A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials."

- Seneca

It seems appropriate to have this quote given that the Olympics are on right now. It's been incredible to see the athletes compete given just how disrupted everyone's plans have been over the past year and a bit. I'm surprised that the Olympics are even happening, but that's just one more trial along the way.

The impressive thing is this: no one has had their ideal preparation time for well over a year, but even despite this, world records are being broken. Don't you think that's amazing?

That's all for another week ! Hope you enjoyed this edition of the Sunday Surprise. Let me know what you thought via the link below.

Cheerio!

- Raffy

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