US Elections
Of course the biggest news is that maybe Biden is the new president, we have to wait for all the court challenges to finish. Remember last time the media got it wrong.
Republicans lost control of their party to a narcissist reality TV star who engaged in veiled threats and self-aggrandizement and gaslighting over all else. So what happens if he doesn’t want to leave the White House? Well after a certain date (20th Nov I think?) all control moves over to the new president and he essentially becomes a normal citizen and can be forcibly removed.
And what does it say about US politics if there’s no rioting and looting if Biden wins??
Crowds are gathering, the same crowd that warned about COVID apparently.
COVID
Victoria has 4 active cases, which is now lower than even the northern territories. NSW has 42 active cases. (No fancy charts until we get another wave.)
The really good news is the gyms are open again, however limited to 20 per venue, which I’m not sure how that works for a gym like Derrimut 247 in Caroline Spring as that place takes up like 4 warehouses in size. It’s also where I usually take a beginner as it has 10 dollar casual, so we can train together without being members of the same gym, and it has rows upon rows of power racks. Anyway the rule is you need to wear a face mask unless out of breath, and to that I say if you are NOT out of breath, then you are not lifting heavy enough!! Add another 20 kgs to that bar.
25 km has been lifted and you can travel to regional Victoria again. Or if you’re looking at a tree change, these places are looking cheap.
If you’re wondering about the various trends in your suburb in Victoria during the lockdown then the charts presented here is interesting, you just need to enter your suburb.
There are currently 13,764,282 active cases in the world. 1,257,942 people are deceased. Globally we have 179 possible vaccines in development.
This piece written by a MD in Stockholm, Sweden on how accurate the PCR positive cases are. PCR being the test where the swab up your nose. He argues that PCR positive cases is a poor indicator of how prevalent covid is in the population and instead we should be looking at rates of hospitalisation, ICU admission and deaths. Otherwise we create an impression that the disease is spreading wildly in the population when it isn’t. Also in Sweden is a 25 year old Australian nurse who got COVID and lives.
From the AAAS Science magazine on the science of super spreading.
I went to the pub for the first time in months. Two things to note, you don’t need to wear a mask at your table, cause obviously you need to eat and drink. But you need one for when you go up to the bar. The bartender will take cash, he said he will take any form of legal tender after being not open for so long. Don’t forget that you need to book, and you maybe limited to 90 mins before you are given the signals that you are being politely asked to leave.
Here’s some interesting 2020 inspired Halloween costumes.
Markets & Economics.
Australia is now at 0.1% interest rate after last week’s RBA cut. According to the IMF we are in a liquidity trap with interest rates so low for all countries and central banks can’t achieve their random target to make things more expensive for you so they have to resort to printing money as the means of making things more expensive for you. As every country’s central bank battles it out to see how much money they can flood the system. In that way they can cause the commercial banks to collapse and increase the power of central banks with Central Bank Digital Currency. China will have it. It’s coming to the Euro. Even the RBA has admitted it’s coming to Australia. It’s basically the great reset, the new bretton wood agreement where we the system is reset, and the rest of us get screwed over. Meanwhile in other news bitcoin is now at $21,400 AUD or $15,145 USD.
A 25 year old sued REST super for not managing the risk of climate change and won. There’s going to come a time when your pension fund investing in coal companies is akin to it investing in cigarette or weapon companies. The younger generation are demanding change, and it’s a financial risk to be investing in non renewable.
The NAB has tripled its bad loan provisions, while the CBA has given homeowners struggling with their repayment until Sep 2021 until they will get their arse kicked to the street.
BTC celebrated its 12 year birthday of the releasing of the bitcoin whitepaper. Software is eating the world – that is the thesis of Marc Andreessen, and it is now happening to money.
This is interesting interview with Raoul Pal. Here’s Michael Saylor in 1 min, Here he is in 3 hours double episode. I know there’s a lot of content from Raoul and Michael Saylor in my weekly content consumption, but basically some of us think the wheels have fallen off. And what happens when the wheels fall off? Well usually the following (as he has no front wheel!)
On the topic of bikes, this bike escalator in Norway is kinda cool.
Other Stuff
This episode on career tools came up in my podcast feed about “Open to Opportunities” which I found interesting. Initial I thought it was going to be about the Open to opportunities thing I’ve been seeing on linkedin, but it’s not, it’s more for those people who are happy with where they are, and what they are doing. It’s not that you are looking for a new job, but that you are open to hearing about new opportunities, especially if it gives you more money, or your dream company etc. Its about being open basically.
I discovered that rapeseed oil is canola oil! As I was working out how to season my new fav kitchen equipment, the blue steel crepe pan from France. Used it twice, its been well seasoned and working better than the chemical non-stick stuff. We actually don’t own any non-stick pans, it’s mainly cast iron cause I got tired of non-stick stop being non stick after a few months.
Tech
Just a reminder that I’m looking to build a new pc, so a lot of content I consume relates to this topic. Just a few bullet points.
- I normally do extensive research, and weigh the pros and cons of many different components and how they will come together, what other experience are, bang for bucks. It may take months, but it’s part of the pleasure of computer upgrades for me.
- The interesting thing at the moment is there’s quite a few new tech released. New Zen 3 CPU from AMD, new GPU from nVidia and AMD. So it takes time for that to play out and people test it.
- Water cooling list I priced up is too expensive for the start, but maybe some time down the track now that I’ve done extensive research.
- I like big tower cases where I can cram a tonne of things into it.
So on to articles I found interesting:
Anandtech released an extensive article on the new AMD Zen 3 Ryzen CPU, and it way outperforms a Intel CPU. My next CPU will most likely be a Ryzen 5600X at this stage, will wait for the initial release day premium to drop.
Water cooling fitting guide which I found helpful. This article on water cooling is super extensive. I’m still tossing up the water cooling at some point in the future. I did a full price list, and it’s too expensive.
At the moment my current list of possible cases are
- Lian Li PC-O11 Dynamic XL ROG Certified Case Black – nice looking but missing a ODD bay, also only really nice if it’s going to be water cooled.
- Fractal Design Define 7 XL Tempered Glass Dark Tint Black – my current front runner. Would need to replace all the case fans.
- be quiet! Dark Base Pro 900 Rev 2 Case Black – I don’t like that you have to plug the PSU into another wire. It is also the most expensive, not sure it is worth the cost esp since the Define 7 XL is pretty similar and people have positive experience with it.
Anyway hope you enjoy this week’s edition, and don’t forget to do your own research cause obviously I do mine.
