COVID
Melbourne is back in lockdown for 7 (or more) days. The supermarkets had been emptied of fresh food, flour and toilet paper.
We are back to remote learning at school again.
There’s zero traffic at night. Snap lockdown is not such a good thing for some young people who won’t be able to make rent this month, and there won’t be any help from the government.
Australia has 40 active cases acquired from community transmission. All of those cases are in Victoria. Also none of those people are hospitalised. The world has moved lower still and we are now at 14,454,119 active cases. Total Death is at 3,550,628 (or a mortality rate of 2%)
Two notable virologist claim that the finger print of COVID proves that it was man made. Also interesting to note that the US has collaborate with China for many years on this research. If you’ve had COVID, then your body will probably make antibodies for a lifetime according to Nature, however it’s still uncertain what it will look like long term in terms of virus evolving. However it probably doesn’t make the following ok.
Finance and Economics
This weeks must listen to is about “Official Cowards, Financial Scatology & Precursors to Hyperinflation“. What I learned is Inflation that is due to money printing makes all money worth less, it also encourages people to not save and seek riskier asset classes. For the middle class who are saving money, it’s like having the rug pulled out from under your feet. If you look at it, those things that matter the most in your life, housing, education, food and health care has become much more expensive in the last 2 decades and it’s starting to be noticeable. Once it goes up, it doesn’t come down again, it becomes the new normal. Things that you are going to need tomorrow is going to be more expensive than they are today. There’s no point looking at the CPI, and how cheap it is to produce and sell a TV when the basic essentials are getting more expensive. You need to understand that the cost of the things that you need to live is going up. Otherwise if it’s not getting more expensive, then you are getting less through shrinkflation- where the thing you are buying is getting smaller and smaller (has anyone gone to maccus and noted that the size of burgers have gotten smaller). The printing of money and thinking there won’t be any issue is like saying if you never sober up, you will never have a hang over. However when you don’t like the system anymore, you now have the option to opt out with crypto.
BTC is trading at $46,000 AUD or $35,500 USD. If human society adopted bitcoin, then we will all die. Don’t forget that if you change from one crypto to another crypto then the tax office considers this a sell and that you need to report and pay tax on it.
If you are interest in elliptic curve cryptography that’s used in bitcoin, I found this explanation interesting
Swimming
Why am I learning to swim as an adult? 1. To not die. 2. To swim with Whalesharks at Ningaloo Reef in Exmouth, WA
Things I have learnt so far on my swimming journey. (None of this is going to be helpful if you don’t know how to swim, and it equally not going to be helpful if you already know how to swim! So it’s mainly a reminder for myself)
-I tend to sink, apparently it’s my fault cause I’m pulling my hips down (unconsciously) even with a pull buoy.
-Head hips and heels need to be at the surface of water to enable a smooth glide
-Arms relaxed but not floppy.
-Arms should be in superman position, but point to 4 o’clock – so slightly down. It should not move from there, and when it does it should return to that position.
-Kick from the hips, not from the knees. Your ankles should be floppy ankles.
-The kick is not the thing that propels you forward.
-Your aim is to make yourself as streamline in the water as possible. – Think like a boat. And the most streamline position is actually on your side. See Alexander Popov drill.
-Windmilling your arms doesn’t make you go faster.
-Your arms are to be treated like oars on a boat.
-Neck and shoulders needs to be loose.
-Your eyes need to be always looking at the bottom of the pool. That’s why the bottom of the pool has a painted middle strip.
-You initiate the stroke by turning your hips. Which moves you from a superman position to only having 1 arm in front, and that’s the skate position.
-The feeling I get when I go into this position is a sudden rush of water at the head like the head of a boat as you get propelled through water.
-You breathe by rotation of the shoulder and hips and then turning your head so that one part of your mouth is out of the water.
-Taking a deep breath in makes you tense and hence you sink.
-I’m practicing dry land drills, but it doesn’t seem to translate well to when I’m floating in the water.
Here’s a beautiful 6 min documentary about swimming.
Other Stuff
This girl worked started at an entry level position at a startup, received company stock as part of her remuneration. Company has listed. She left job after 2 years, still has her stocks and has made a paper profit of $200k USD. She can’t sell still the stock is time vested, which is common at startups.
The report that came out of the senate inquiry into the Aust Post CEO Christine Holgate getting canned has been scathing. It slams the chairman of the Australia Post, and also the Prime Minister for his remarks of “She can go”. The position of the chairman is no untenable, and he should resign and the prime minster should apologies for his remarks, which he refused to do, which goes to say that he doesn’t respect women. Basically the government had an agenda to privatise Australia post and sell it off, and so their objective had been to show unprofitable it is. This is based on a report that they paid the Boston Consulting Group to produce, paying that group a large sum of money, and they refuse to release this report. Christine came in as CEO and made it extremely profitable by providing banking services which ruins that agenda, so they were trying to get rid of her. The banking services works because the banks have been closing branches in regional Australia, and Aus Post had struck a deal with 3 of the big banks for them to provide banking services through the post offices, and requiring them to pay Aus Post a fee. A large number of the regional post offices are actually owned by mum and dad and they are what is called licensed post offices, so those mum and dads were really happy to be profitable. The gifting of the Cartier watches to the staff to struck the deal with the bank was something signed off by the previous chairman, and is within her power to do. So she has done nothing wrong. AusPost doesn’t take tax payers money and are required by law to function as commercial entity, and actually pay the government a dividend.
Trials begin for a lozenge that can rebuild tooth enamel. All we need after that is a vaccine for plaque build up, so that the body triggers itself to fight any decay in the teeth.
Shifting the midpoint of your sleep cycle to 1 hour earlier can reduce the chance of depression and make you feel better during the day. Which basically means sleeping one hour earlier than you usually would, and then waking up 1 hour earlier. The other thing that you can benefit from is just going for a walk in nature every day, no earphones, just take in the sight and sound around you.
In case you missed Barbara Pravi performance at Eurovision, it was breathtaking. Here is one of my favourite songs from a few years ago. And on that note, have a good week all.