Travel In Aus. Update 10-08-2020

Go to bed early, not leaving my house, not going to parties – my childhood punishments have become my adult goals. Remember all those times when you wished the weekend would last forever? Well, wish granted.

7854 active cases in Vic, up from 6322 active cases. Still very much in the second wave. Doesn’t look like any huge drop off in the blue bars yet

NSW gone from 240 to 275

The interesting thing in Victoria is there are people from all age brackets in hospital

Hotel quarantine debacle was in the news again. Seems they went for social inclusion hiring policy rather than just making sure the people could do the job as the first point of call.

Return to normal has been pushed out till 28 March 2021. That’s when JobKeeper ends in Aus. Sure the situation is not going to last forever, but if you’re honest you should probably set your expectations for 2 years.

It appears that there is no studies that support curfew as an effective measure to stop COVID, especially since it forces people to do groceries at the same time, get takeaway at the same earlier time. The spread of COVID19 is based on two factors: 1. How dense the population is and 2. How dense the population is.

The world is at 6,400,680 active cases. 730,256 deceased. It’s interesting to see why Hong Kong never had lockdown, especially the bracelet you’re forced to wear during your two week quarantine, it’s like an ankle bracelet you see in the movies that people on parole need to wear.

Here’s someone talking about the advantage she’s experienced working from home. Such as being available to the family as soon as work finished. Not needing to stress about picking up the kids on time. It’s especially an advantage for women living in the outer suburb, as the commuting time was keeping them out of the workforce.

Office redesigns are taking place, and could include thermal imaging cameras as you enter. Questionnaires before you come into work. Plexi-glass. Tags that each person wears that buzz if you are too close to assist in contact tracing. Ultra violet lights that kill germs. Mask in meetings. New type of filters for the air, incorporating more outside air. Separate zones for visitors that circulate different air. Some of the “old designs” in this video look exactly like our “new designs”….

Whoever decided a liquor store is more essential than a hair salon is obviously an alcoholic.

Someone’s bike ride on Strava around the south eastern suburbs….

Markets and Economics

Volatility is coming according to Raoul Pal. I like the comment that if we open up everything and 5% of people continue to not spend, then the economy is down 5%. And even if you open up everything, the boomer generation who have all the money, their behaviour has changed, they are not going to go out and spend for fear of death. This generation of people are not coming back to the labor force. I honestly don’t see a scenario of it going back to how it was.This was the conversation to focus on this week.

A reminder that reserve currency status does not last forever. If you think it doesn’t affect you if you don’t live / own USD, then you are mistaken the flow on effects will reverberate through the world

We are in stagflation, and things are not going back to how they were before. If you believe all this will end and we will get back to normal just because we reopen everything, raise your hand. Now slap yourself with it….

Other Stuff

Did you see the crash in the Tour of Poland? He’s out of the coma. On the topic of cycling, have you seen the bike parking in Amsterdam?

At this point I’m just going to have an AMA with myself. Where I ask the questions and then answer my own questions. Because i think that will be fun (for me).

What am I reading at the moment?
“When Money Dies – The nightmare of deficit spending, devaluations and hyperinflation in weimar germany.” Great book so far, there’s quite a few parallels with what is happening currently with the financial system. Our current situation with economy is only going to get worse before it gets better.

Lockdown drink of choice?
Iron Goddess Oolong tea from Sassafras. You can pick it up after doing the 1 in 20. If you are game then follow that up with The devil’s elbow, then a cruisy trip down sherbrooke rd to come back up “The Wall”, which is usually where I hit the wall and need to call in the support crew as I’m not a climber (on a bike).

What do you look forward to doing when lockdown eases?
Problem solving.

What have you been doing more since lockdown?
Amazon Prime deliveries.

Do aliens exist?
Absolutely, there must be, but we may never find out for sure because of how time dilation works. Sometimes we don’t realise how far we actually are from even the next nearest star system.

What are you reading next?
Not sure, depends on my mood, I just counted and there’s close to 100 books on my wish list.

What does fitness look like with no gym open?
Consider the Happy Body from Jerzy Gregorek. The question is can you do one rep of the Jerzy-Squat? It’s a test of flexibility. I want to be doing this at 51 years old.

Otherwise, Swing the kettlebell around, that my default goto when I spend extended time in France, since my kettle bells that I have there don’t take up space. Some intermediate sprints or hill sprints, going at 80-90% capacity. (the thesis being a sprinter has better physique than a marathon runner)

Should I buy bitcoin?
No.

The reserve bank / fed is coming out with it’s own digital currency, does that mean bitcoin is dead?
Is it censorship resistant value transfer, unconfiscatable, open to anyone to build on top of, decentralised, borderless with a predefined inflation rate? No? Then it does not compete.

What’s it like to work at a startup?
You would ideally need to be multidisciplinary to thrive. You need to pitch in and help with everything. It’s roll up your sleeve all hands on deck. There is no steering committee or working group. You don’t ask for permission, you execute. Ideas are crap, execution is the game. Company does well, you also do well, almost direct correlation

I want to start reading books, what do you recommend?
Work out if you can sit down to pick up a book to read or not. If you can’t do that, then get audible and pay the monthly fee. Grab a good pair of earphones, and you can do it while your cooking, travelling in between places etc. My recommended book to start with is usually Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. It will change the way you view the world and you will see what people in a new light. Otherwise start with something that interests you. Harry Potter and LOTR are actually great reads and better than the movie.

What is the meaning of life?
There is no meaning, meaning is whatever you give to life. It’s up to each of us to discover our own meaning.

What internet speed are you getting?
Here’s my result from speedtest.net. Pretty happy with the new NBN connection.

I want to improve on my strategic thinking, my game theory, how do I do that?
Play more computer games or European strategy board games.

I need a productivity hack for doing focused work, what do you have for me?
Listen to 1 song on repeat over and over with headphones. The song doesn’t matter, but it must be repeated. And it generally depends on your mood, but it’s generally a fast pumpy song for me. How else do you think I can sit and write 223 pages of COVID-19 update for 21 weeks straight? I’m listening to this Epic Rock

What’s your motivation to do this every week?
Mostly to improve my own writing. Improved writing = improved thought process. And if 1 person enjoys reading it, then it’s job done. Otherwise it’s just fun for me.

How long do you think we will be in this new normal?
2 years.

Will we ever go back to how it used to be?
No, get used to it. The arrow of time always moves forward.

I would like to thrive at working remotely, any tips?
Use chat more, individual chat, group chats. It’s a quicker way to communicate. But communicate in a way that’s “native” to the platform.
“Hi,
How are you today? How’s the dog, the cat and the bunny rabbit going? By the way the request that you had asked for last week is now complete. I hope you have a wonderful day / week / year.
Kind Regards,
Whomever.”
I swear I got a message just like that in chat the other week… could have just said ‘done’. It’s NOT a cover letter for a job. Obviously said individual didn’t grow up in the ICQ days. Remember ICQ from the early 2000s? It should generally be simple, fast and / or conversational.

What skills should I consider working on?
Skills that add increased capability or can easily be transferred are always helpful. Often we forget the basics still need to be honed and worked on
Speaking – Don’t think of it as public speaking, as anything you say to anyone is actually public speaking. If all about getting the message across.
Writing – What do you really think I’ve been doing all this time? If sometimes I don’t make sense or a word seems out of place it’s because i’ve gone and edited, cut and pasted, and then cut something down or removed something without re-reading.
Learning – Learning the skill focus on strategies to efficiently learn something.
Teaching – It’s considered the highest form of mastery when you can teach what you know. Even if it’s just a small piece of just the part that you know. Yes, teaching is a skill if you remember dreading the high school teacher who couldn’t teach.
Building things – This is where I usually put programming as building something encompass something more. Learning to program itself is useless, learning to build things is harder to teach but way more useful.

My back hurts…
Yup that’s a result of sitting on a bad office chair that was not designed to be sat on for a long period of time.
And that’s why I have the Secret Labs Titan – it’s a gaming chair. It’s not cheap and I’m not sure the style suits everyone’s taste. But it’s 110% better than the office chair. I say that because I actually sit without slouching in it as the backrest lumbar actually supports my back. Also I tend to sit cross legged

Actually not my question, someone wanted to know more about Northern Territory a while ago.
Most Australians never visit their own backyard. But the best way to tell you more is with images. We’re keen photographers in my family.

Feeding fishes in Darwin