[After the dot-com crash], the lesson people learned from that was not, “I should never speculate on overvalued financial assets.” The lesson they learned was, “I should never speculate on internet stocks.” And so the same people who lost 90% or more of their money day-trading internet stocks ended up flipping homes in the mid 2000s, and getting wiped out doing that. It’s dangerous to learn narrow lessons. Via Morgan Housel’s Lucky vs. Repeatable Another great idea from this post: History is the study of change, ironically used as a map of the future.
Loved this short essay on the importance and paradox of maintenance: Maintenance: Of Everything by Stewart Brand The apparent paradox is profound: Maintenance is absolutely necessary and maintenance is optional. It it easy to put off, and yet it has to be done. Defer now, regret later. What to do? Soften the paradox and the misbehavior it encourages by expanding the term “maintenance” beyond referring only to preventive maintenance to stave off the trauma of repair–brushing the damn teeth, etc. Let “maintenance” mean the whole grand process of keeping a thing going. In that perspective, occasional repair is part of… Read more: Paradox of Maintenance
I am already in the holiday mood but when I checked my workout log spreadsheet last week, I noticed I am three short of a round number. So this week I exercised as normal to end this year with 120 workouts. Otherwise I was planning to take a break! Some months this year I didn’t exercise for two weeks at a time. I was sick for two weeks in May, and I traveled for two weeks in September and November. I also had one week of travel in August. Overall, I am happy that I could sustain my weekly cadence… Read more: 2023 Workouts
This is a great episode on The Morgan Housel Podcast. Your willingness to believe something is influenced by how much you want and need it to be true. If you tell me you’ve found an easy way to double my money in a week, I’m not going to believe you; I am just going to assume you are trying to trick me. But if I desperately owed someone money next month that I don’t have, I might listen to you. And if my children were starving and my only hope for their survival was doubling my money next week, I… Read more: Our delusions are relative
It’s that time of year where people often start thinking about new year’s resolutions. I want to lose 10 lbs, I want to read more books, I want to x,… Commit to competence in this coming year
In the Copying high-status people can backfire post, I learnt what countersignaling means. The rest of the section is informative too. Have a read. Successful people can afford to engage in countersignaling—doing things that signal high status because they are associated with low status. It is a form of self-handicapping, signaling that one is so well off that they can afford to engage in activities and behaviors that people typically associated with low status. An example from Ogilvy Vice Chairman Rory Sutherland: If you’re a top executive, turning up to work on a bicycle is a high-status activity because it was a choice and… Read more: Countersignaling
The Action Button on the iPhone 15 Pro is a small feature I eagerly anticipated. Apple offers nine options from which I specifically wanted to access both the silent mode and the camera. I also wanted the actions to activate right away upon pressing the Action button, without needing to select anything from the on-screen menu after the button press. Given my preferences, I knew it has to be through an iOS shortcut but lacking the technical knowledge to set it up myself, I turned to the internet for help. My search lead me to this Thread by John Gruber… Read more: How I setup my iPhone’s Action Button
I can’t contain my excitement as I write this blog post! After seven years of loyal service, my trusty iPhone 7 is finally got a well-deserved retirement. And in its place? The shiny, brand-new iPhone 15 Pro! 📱✨ I was in Kyoto when Apple started taking orders for New Zealand. Since I was a few timezones behind in Kyoto, I was able to pre-order early on September 16th and received my iPhone on September 22nd. There was a little hiccup when the courier arrived while I was out getting coffee, so I had to pick up the package from their… Read more: From iPhone 7 to iPhone 15 Pro
I am happy to learn that iPhone Emergency SOS is now available in New Zealand. I thought Apple only offered this potentially life-saving service in larger markets. All the new iPhone 15 models will come with a two year subscription to Apple’s satellite-based emergency SOS service Apple’s first NZ Emergency SOS rescue Earlier this month saw Apple’s Emergency SOS service used for its first New Zealand rescue. Hikers walking near Arthurs Pass found themselves on the wrong side of a river which had risen to an unsafe crossing level. They used the Emergency SOS service on an iPhone 14 to… Read more: iPhone 15 Pro SOS
All from my favorite thinker and author Morgan Housel. Gosh, that’s me too! I’m at the stage in life where I stay out of arguments. Even if you say 1+1=5, you’re right. Have fun. Keanu Reeves via Smart Things Smart People Said I think there is a lot of value in focusing more to develop smarts than intelligence: Intelligence: Good memory, logic, math skills, test-taking ability, rule-following. Smart: High degree of empathy, bullshit detection, organization, communication skills, persuasion, social awareness, understanding the consequences of your actions. Both are important. But there’s a critical difference in how each is valued. Schools… Read more: Few things I am pondering
This week I really struggled to start my workouts. I ate pizza on Monday, and slacked off on Tuesday for no reason. I finally did an upper body workout today (Wednesday). I normally get one workout done by Tuesday. I will complete two more workouts this week before I board a flight to Asia on Sunday. But it dawned on me how hard it is to do hard things consistently. I am not new to exercising and I identify myself as someone who don’t skip workouts. I kept my weekly three workouts routine since 2014 and I already worked out… Read more: Doing Hard Things. Consistently.
You should never look down the road not taken. Because that road never leads to where you think it should. Never Look Down the Road Not Taken by Nick Maggiulli
I didn’t quite understand the meaning of quite until learned this from my coworkers a few years ago: “quite good” in America 🇺🇸: really good, very good, totally awesome “quite good” in the UK 🇬🇧: fairly good, actually not that good really
Whenever we are surprised by something, even if we admit that we made a mistake, we say, ‘Oh I’ll never make that mistake again.’ But, in fact, what you should learn when you make a mistake because you did not anticipate something is that the world is difficult to anticipate. That’s the correct lesson to learn from surprises: that the world is surprising. Psychologist Daniel Kahneman. Via Morgan Housel.
Today is the last day of my 30s. Life is rarely all good or all bad, but I am so thankful that my life and work experience of the last decade turned out largely in my favor. I owe a huge part of it to my family, moving to this country and working for my current employer. I didn’t get everything I wanted, but as one of my favourite authors said, if you don’t get everything you want, think of the things you don’t get that you don’t want. So I am grateful for all I have and don’t have,… Read more: Turning 40!
What actually brings happiness is the contrast between what you have now and whatever you were just doing. When you realize how powerful expectations are, you put as much effort into keeping them low as you do into improving your circumstances. Happiness, contentment, joy … all of those things come from experiencing a gap between expectations and reality. What Makes You Happy
This week I exercised Mon, Wed and Fri. And I walked for an hour on Thursday. I bought and returned the Bose Smart Soundbar 900. It is not an impulse purchase— I have been contemplating it for a few months. But when we got it home this weekend and set it up, the sound output didn’t meet our expectations, so we are unhappy with shelling out $1245. To take advantage of the sound bar, we have to add a Bose woofer at another $750, making the whole setup uneconomical. Luckily the local electronics store accepted my change of mind and… Read more: Week 15, 2023
This week all habits were kept. The highlight of this week is that our car returned home after getting involved in an accident and then spending next six months in the workshop while the parts were imported from Japan. I am surprised that it took only six months to be repaired in the post-Covid world where shipping and supply chain issues are rampant. While the replacement Jeep Renegade was great, I only realized how much I missed my own wheels after getting my hands back on them. This week is also Easter weekend which is special to our family. We… Read more: Week 14, 2023
We are three months into 2023. Time flies! This is the last week of Daylight Savings which has ended today (Sunday). The days are already getting shorter and cooler. I love the seasonal change. So I am looking forward to cool weather and wet days over the next six months. This week has been great. I kept all my habits and streaks. Anniversary We celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary on Wednesday with a nice lunch and dinner. We were going to go on a road trip but son had some zone football at school, so we didn’t want him to… Read more: Week 13, 2023
This week felt accomplished overall. I hit all, well actually, two main weekly goals: I saved some money and exercised three times on Mon, Tues, and Fridays with more physical movement by way of cricket and basketball with my son in the nearby park. I also kept my meditation and Elevate streaks. I had a review of my last six months at work which turned out to be good. I removed Twitter app on my phone and loving it. Now I only check Twitter a few times on the computer instead of many more times throughout the day. Son’s cricket… Read more: Week 12, 2023
This week is good. I was on track with my weekly goals, and kept my habit streaks. Will share specifics on my weekly habits and goals in a future post. Moved to 1Password. Good riddance to LastPass which served me well for the last 7-ish years but I am concerned with the frequency of breaches lately. So imported passwords to 1Password and canceled LastPass. The import failed initially but I was able to import via 1Password web app. I also installed AlDente app on a colleague’s recommendation, to limit MacBook from charging above a certain percentage, to decrease wear and… Read more: Week 11, 2023
I briefly re-connected with my old blogging friend Thejesh on his blog this week. We both used to work for the same tech company in mid-2000s. Thejesh is one of the blogger who positively influenced me in the early days of my career. While I haven’t met him in about 20 years, I enjoy reading his blog. In one such recent visit to his blog, I noticed he recently started sharing weekly notes. That also reminded me of weekly learnings regularly shared by one of my other blogger friends Nick from a different corner of the blogosphere. I write this… Read more: Weekly Notes
I recently came across a couple of thoughts on social media that resonated with me. Loosely why I don’t engage as much with social media and prefer blogging instead. Social media is designed to make you wish you were someone else, somewhere else, and with someone else. Curate your consumption and eliminate what brings negative emotions. Originally tweeted by Sahil Bloom (@SahilBloom) on February 12, 2023. People don’t communicate on social media; they perform for one another. Psychologist Jonathan Haidt. Via The Art and Science of Spending Money by Morgan Housel
I am loving these new apps that I recently got for my 14″ Mac Book Pro. Make sure to check them out if you are a Mac user too. Top Notch to hide the top notch. PixelSnap to measure things on the screen. The above two apps are from the makers of the screenshot making app I love: CleanShot and that played a part in my decision to let them live on my Mac. Bartender 4 to organize the menu bar. I preferred the 14″ screen to the 16″ (in the absence of 15″), but one of the downsides of… Read more: New Mac Apps
In 2022, I worked out 130 times using the same principle and tips I used in the prior years. I missed a lot of workouts, but I never cease to amaze by how small numbers add up over the year. Month Number of workouts Excuses for missed workouts Notes Jan 9 Skipped first week for holidays. Feb 13 Mar 11 Missed the last week during a family holiday. Apr 9 Missed third week; was sick with Covid. May 13 Jun 11 Skipped third week. Just plain laziness. Jul 12 Aug 13 Sep 9 Missed 5 workouts due to travel. But walked a… Read more: 2022 Workouts
I ordered a new iPhone! 14 Pro it is, to replace the original iPhone SE that I bought in April 2016. Loving the Dynamic Island. It is exciting because I am frugal with gadgets (and everything generally!) and I buy iPhones only a few times in a decade. So this is a big moment in the house. Like any phone Apple made, I would say the iPhone SE the 14 Pro is replacing is still good as Apple generally claims on Switching to iPhone page on their website . I could squeeze another year out of the SE if I could put up with… Read more: iPhone 14 Pro
I recently found myself reading and enjoying most of the articles on the following blogs. So I have let them into my inbox. Check them out below. You may love their writing too.
If you can’t use your legs and they bring you milk when you wanted orange juice, you learn to say ‘that’s all right,’ and drink it. Franklin Delano Roosevelt via Morgan Housel
As I become impatient with a couple of long-term goals that don’t seem to be progressing fast enough, I seek solace from a couple of encouraging perspectives on time: Nearly everything awesome takes longer than you think. Get started and don’t worry about the clock. James Clear Demotivated because of how long it’ll take? Remember the time will pass anyways. Traf
Our possessions should be suited to our bodies and lives, just as our shoes are suited to our feet. Epictetus I recently read The Manual: A Philosopher’s Guide to Life and have been pondering over the above quote from that book. That’s the philosophy I apply when I buy things, from the clothes I wear to my phone and even the car I drive. I vividly remember in 2008 iPhone 3G was hot, and I really yearned for it. I could have stretched my savings, but I wasn’t feeling great about my life overall. So I withheld the iPhone purchase… Read more: Possessions and Lifestyle
Five years is a long time. It is much slower than most of us would like. If you accept the reality of slow progress, you have every reason to take action today. If you resist the reality of slow progress, five years from now you’ll simply be five years older and still looking for a shortcut. James Clear’s May 26th edition of 3-2-1 newsletter on Happiness, the opinions of others, and accepting the reality of slow progress
I recently read Carl Richards’s personal finance book The Behavior Gap, in which I came across this quote that struck a chord with me: When the Zen master Wu Li was asked what to do to achieve enlightenment, he responded, “Chop wood, carry water.” When he was asked what to do when you have achieved enlightenment, heresponded, “Chop wood, carry water.” Maybe happiness comes easiest when we are so busy working, taking care ofkids, shoveling snow, or cleaning the house that we forget to look for it. Page 66, The Behavior Gap That’s precisely how I derive my happiness: from… Read more: Chop wood, carry water
I like the following extensions to the otherwise banal quotes: The grass is always greener on the side that’s fertilized with bullshit. Morgan Housel Rome wasn’t built in a day, but they were laying bricks every hour. James Clear
I caught up on two of Matt Mullenweg’s podcasts today. As always, it was insightful to listen to Matt. I highly recommend checking them out if you are into technology, open-source, and the internet.
Enjoyed this three-hour conversation between Tim Ferriss and my favorite author, Morgan Housel. I highly recommend checking it out. I watched this fascinating discussion in two sessions and as always learned a lot from Morgan. You will find the show notes and links here on the following episode web page:
Money is often a negative art. What you don’t do can be more important than what you actively do. Everything has a price, and prices aren’t always clear. The price of exercise isn’t just the workout; it’s avoiding the post-workout urge to eat a ton of food. Same in finance. The price of building wealth isn’t just the trouble of earning money or dealing; it’s avoiding the post-income urge to spend what you’ve accumulated. Morgan Housel in After the Fact
When you decouple your ego from a bad outcome, it creates an opportunity for you to learn from it. When you decouple your ego from a good outcome, it saves you from future disasters. Vishal Khandelwal in How to Stop Sabotaging Your Investing In that post Vishal mentions What I learned by losing a million dollars book, which is one of my favorite books to learn how humans behave.
All I can say is that writers of all ages should stay away from the extremes of hypersensitivity-to-feedback and obliviousness-to-feedback. Seek out wise criticism. Reserve time in your week for the regret that comes with getting things wrong. I promise the feeling will go away, and something else will appear in its place, which is learning. Derek Thompson in Why Simple Is Smart
I recently overheard the following comment about contracts in a podcast. Any kind of contract is 50% what’s on the page, and 50% good faith. It is so true and aligns with my worldview. ↵ Back to Bookmarks page.
It’s tempting to want to find the one big skill that will set you apart. But most incredible things come from compounding, and compounding isn’t intuitive because the incremental inputs are never exciting on their own. Big Skills by my favorite blogger and author, Morgan Housel
When working with people, assume good intentions. When listening to people, interpret their words in a generous way. You will occasionally get burned and mistreated by always assuming the best in others, but it is a far better way to live than the opposite. January 27, 2022 issue of James Clear’s 321 newsletter
I am generally skeptical about experts and their forecasts. The following quote from a humble, expert economist I respect and admire, drives my point: …there’s something I learnt in this field three to four decades ago. It doesn’t matter how many ifs, buts and caveats one sticks around a subject, people still want to know what your forecast is for it. So, much as I personally wouldn’t assign more than a 10% chance of this prediction being correct… New Zealand house price prediction for 2022, by Tony Alexander Tony is predicting New Zealand house price growth. But I believe his… Read more: Expert predictions
The following tweet, I first found in 2014 has served me well. This is how I almost always look at things, generally. Stop wishing. Start adapting. THE PESSIMIST COMPLAINS ABOUT THE WIND;THE OPTIMIST EXPECTS IT TO CHANGE;THE REALIST ADJUSTS THE SAILS. WILLIAM A. WARD
We often forget that anything in life takes time. That’s why the first step toward getting better at something is learning how to make time for it. Fresh start effect. This psychological phenomenon makes people see the beginning of a new year (or a new semester, month or even week) as an opportunity to distance themselves from their past failures. “Yes … damn!” effect, a bias that makes people wrongly believe they will have more time in the future than right now. This is the cognitive bias responsible for why so many of us agree to future activities like agreeing to… Read more: Making time for learning and goals
I exercised 142 times in 2021. When I took a count in July, I anticipated missing about 10 workouts through the remainder of the year, but I actually missed just one. At 3x per week, I was lucky enough to work out about 47 of 52 weeks. That makes 2021 yet another good year in terms of physical activity and exercise compliance. Here is the monthly breakup: Month Workouts Done Notes Jan 9 Skipped the first week Feb 12 Mar 12 Skipped the last week Apr 12 May 13 Jun 9 Skipped the second week and missed one session in… Read more: 2021 Workouts
Almost three years ago, I moved to Todoist to manage my todos and projects. Today I am thrilled to receive the following email from Todoist. I only vaguely know about the Todoist Karma feature. I haven’t taken time to explore the Karma feature as it is related to stats and is tangential to how I use Todoist, but I am pleasantly surprised by this snip of the email I received: you’ve joined just 0.05% of all Todoist users to ever reach Todoist Karma Enlightenment. You should be incredibly proud of this accomplishment – we sure are! … In celebration of… Read more: Todoist Karma Enlightenment
I came across many quotes on gratitude, but this one I found in last week’s James Clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter felt profound and made its way to the Quotes page on this site. Poet and playwright Oscar Wilde on being grateful for what you avoid: If you don’t get everything you want, think of the things you don’t get that you don’t want. Don’t Forget to Sing in the Lifeboats via James Clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter, November 25, 2021
Today is day 100 since the current lockdown started. My feelings over these past 100 days are something similar to this: Whatever our individual troubles and challenges may be, it’s important to pause every now and then to appreciate all that we have, on every level. Shakti Gawain Following are the relevant Covid stats shared by a nice person on twitter.
Among other things happening in my life, I almost forgot that today is day 75 of the lockdown that started on 18th August. Here are today’s case stats shared by a nice person on Twitter. This is the longest ever lockdown since this plague started in 2020 God knows where and how. Just like almost everyone’s, this lockdown totally upended my plans and routines since August. I will have to share my experience of living through this lockdown in another post… perhaps on day 100 or hopefully sooner when I get time to reflect deeply and write down my feelings.
Today I completed the 20201 edition of the WWWP 5K run walk. I opted to walk instead of run because I was with my family. Today is the official last day for the run, and the weather was wet in the morning so I wasn’t sure but then the day got drier by mid-day so we laced up and headed out.
Just this afternoon, I shared an anecdote about how, in 2021, it is still painful to generally access customer support across the board. As fate would have it, I had to call a company called https://www.icicidirect.com/, and I did run into the exact icky situation I was ranting about. Here is the transcript: 0:02 – Welcome to ICICI Direct 0:05 – Thank you for calling us0:10 – Terrible music starts(Terrible music continues for nearly 6 minutes while I hoped that someone will attend to me. But alas!)06:04 – Terrible music ends with a Goodbye! Here is the full audio clip… Read more: Awful ICICIDirect phone support
I am just reading the print edition of the August/September issue of the Rural Living magazine (online edition here). The following editorial piqued my interest and confirmed what I know is generally true with most customer support. Although this article is aimed at New Zealand businesses, anecdotally, I know the state of customer support elsewhere is not drastically different. It is an excellent opportunity for clever companies to genuinely value customer support, make it easier for customers to contact them, and bring their business to them instead of dealing with an apathetic competitor who won’t listen and is inaccessible to… Read more: Contacting companies is still cumbersome in 2021
It’s been a few years since I wrote about the Itsycal calendar app that I use on my Mac. It still is the default time and calendar app on my Mac’s menu bar. Here are a few more cool Mac apps that I use and love. Clocker Clocker displays time from additional time zones on Mac’s menu bar or as a floating panel. In my work, I look up UTC time a lot, and so I set up UTC time on Clocker to show it on the menu bar. You can also click on the menu bar to expand the… Read more: A few cool Mac apps I use
I woke up to the new iPhone dubbed as iPhone 13. It is as gorgeous and amazing as every other iPhone before it. I’d love to buy the iPhone Mini, but both the original iPhone SE and iPhone 7 in the house, which I bought in 2016, are still going great for my needs, so I chose to delay the gratification. The iPhone SE is a bit flaky, and I anticipate upgrading it sooner than the iPhone 7. I hope to hold on for two more years with my now five-year-old iPhone 7 and upgrade to iPhone 15 in two… Read more: iPhone upgrade
Today, on the tenth day of the current lockdown, I got my first vaccination jab done! We just walked into the local vaccination centre, and they have spaces! My age group wasn’t eligible to book until this week. When I tried to book my vaccination earlier this week the latest slot I could book is six weeks away. After booking my slot, today, I got a message saying I can book the vaccine. Clearly, something is off with the booking system. Despite booking for October, we decided to try walking into one of the two vaccination centres in the neighbourhood.… Read more: Got my first Covid vaccine jab today!
With a community case detected this afternoon in Auckland, the Level 4 rush begins, for which I’m contributing as well. The roads and supermarket aisles and check out lines are busier for a Tuesday afternoon. (This post is brought to you from the supermarket checkout line with a moderately full trolley.) Fingers crossed, we won’t have a lockdown. We will know in a few hours.
My blogging friend and coworker Nick shared this list of 100 Simple Truths in a recent post on his blog. I love reading such lists because you find some ideas you identify yourself with and also: In quoting others, we cite ourselves. Julio Cortázar Following is a selection of the fifteen ideas that I highlighted in my Kindle as I read through those 100 ideas. My thoughts are in brackets. 1. It’s 100% off if you don’t buy it. (I use this trick to postpone or avoid vanity purchases.) 10. Be happy with what you have, while you work for… Read more: Fifteen of the 100 little ideas
The Quotes page on this blog is one of my favorites. On it, I list some principles that resonate with me. I just reordered the quotes and added this quote. All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone. Blaise Pascal I think this quote is similar to the importance of the Joy of Missing Out (JOMO) principle that I believe I first learned from It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson. I am also deliberately practicing this quote and JOMO right now in my life.
I exercised 25 of the 28 weeks so far this year. Overall, I skipped ten workouts and exerted myself 70 times at three workouts per week. I am happy with the volume of my physical effort so far. I am looking forward to keeping this pace through the rest of the year. I will likely miss another 10-12 workouts before December because life happens! Yet, I anticipate I will exercise at least 60 more times before the end of the year. I look forward to reaching the end of this year with my usual annual average of 120-130 workouts. Then… Read more: Mid-year update on my 2021 workouts
Today I got some interesting prompts when I opened the Twitter app. But first, you can disable these prompts for all apps by toggling off Allow Apps to Request to Track from Settings > Privacy as following: Back to the prompts, it is funny how Twitter framed their prompts as if it is doing something beneficial to me, and even offering some choice. No thanks, Twitter.
I am re-reading Morgan Housel’s The Psychology of Money this year and I highly recommend this book to everyone! There are many nuggets of money wisdom in that book. I try hard to resist my urge to share everything I read and learned from this cool book. But today I read the following that reminded me why I save personally: no reason. Save. Just save. You don’t need a specific reason to save. Saving for things that are impossible to predict or define is one of the best reasons to save. Savings that aren’t earmarked for anything in particular is… Read more: Importance of emergency fund
Out of the 11 books in my this year’s reading list, I already read five books in the last few years and some just the last year: What I learned by losing a million dollars. The Psychology of Money. Atomic Habits. Style: the basics of clarity and grace. The Customer Service Survival Kit. I am going to re-read them all this year. The year-end lists of books read by some people I follow are really long! And I only read a handful of books for the past two years (2019 and 2020). While I am cool with the amount of… Read more: Reading books: quality over quantity
We recently visited the Fo Guang Shan Buddhist Temple. While in the temple, I noticed this concept of 3 Goods and 4 Givings. I liked how actionable the 4 Givings are relative to the 3 Goods.
Daniel Kahneman says that when you experience a surprise the correct takeaway is not to assume that event will happen again; it’s to accept that the world is surprising. The Big Lessons of the Last Year.Apr 2, 2021 by Morgan Housel
I’m writing this on the iPhone 7 I bought in October 2016. The first generation iPhone SE I bought in April 2016 still works just fine. I have a first generation iPad Air I bought late 2013. It works for my limited needs. My laptop is my employer-bought mid-2015 Mac Book Pro; it is still going. Although I must add I got a free battery and keyboard replacement in 2019 on Apple. I’m long eligible for an upgrade. I can buy and expense the highest-spec latest Mac Book Pro right now. But I’d like to get the current mid-2015 laptop… Read more: Being frugal with gadgets
Today in Auckland, New Zealand, the Prime Minister announced that the fourth lockdown we entered into from 6 am last Sunday (27th February) would be lifted at 6 am on the coming Sunday (7th March). I am cautiously rejoicing the news. This is the fourth lockdown since the main lockdown started in March 2020. The second one after that, in August 2020, was surprising; my phone got an emergency alert when I was sleeping, and that really shocked me! Two more mini lockdowns later, I am now convinced that another lockdown could hit anytime! Even this current one, which is announced… Read more: Thoughts after the fourth lockdown.
Earlier this afternoon I realized today is day 2 of Level 3 lockdown 4 for the 1 community case we got on Saturday evening. Yes, we got into Level 3 lockdown again since 6 am last Sunday. The lockdown was announced on the Saturday evening, literally within an hour since I was roaming in the city center, peeked into a few bars and restaurants and felt everything was just great and lively! I dropped by the Giapo store, ordered Nothing Else Matters ice cream and then while I was enjoying it, I heard the news of the lockdown. I decided… Read more: Timely Advice for Lockdown 4
We had another —third so far—lockdown in Auckland from Valentine’s Day’s midnight, but luckily it lasted only three days as initially stipulated. Auckland went from Level 1 to Level 3, 4 being most restrictive. The rest of New Zealand stayed at Level 1. I was stressed not because the lockdown was abrupt but because it aggravated my ongoing low spirit due to sluggish progress on the two big, long-term plans for 2021 and beyond. Plus, it also upset the plans I had for my weekly off days. But in the end, we eased one level down by Wednesday midnight, and… Read more: Lockdown — third wave
In the July of 2020, I read What I learned by losing a million dollars book. I blogged a quote that I loved from that book. But there are many nuggets of wisdom and life lessons in the three chapters in the second section of the book titled Lessons Learned. While this book is about the author’s personal story of how he lost money in the US stock markets, I think the psychological processes he explained in chapters 5, 6, and 7 are universal and equally applies to life as well. i.e. if we swap the words business and markets with life in the… Read more: Lessons from “What I learned by losing a million dollars” book: issue 1
In 2010 I first landed in Auckland and instantly fell in love with the city. So much that I applied for permanent residency right in that first week. Like any worthy endeavors, some effort, some uncertainty, a bit of drama, and a lot of luck helped me realize my dream. In the end, it all worked out in my favor. In about 18 months since my first landing in the Auckland International Airport, I gained my permanent residency and eventually citizenship of this beautiful country, which helped me make this lovely city my permanent base. I’m not too fond of… Read more: Auckland Anniversary Day
I voted today! This is my fourth time voting in this country since 2011. Having voted once in 2009 in a third-world country amidst lot of unwarranted drama and hassle, I decided not to vote in similar situation again. But just after a year, in 2010, I got lucky and extricated myself from that corrupted environment. I have since enjoyed hassle-free voting at every possible opportunity in this wonderful country that I am fortunate to call home. Looking forward to the results on 6th November.
I’m so glad that we as New Zealanders could contain the second wave of Covid-19 in 56.5 days since the last outbreak. Auckland will join the rest of New Zealand at Alert Level 1 at 11:59pm today (Wednesday, 7 October). While that’s great news, this time I am cautiously optimistic. There is still COVID-19 in New Zealand; as of today, there are 37 active cases, albeit in managed isolation and quarantine facilities. That number is much smaller than many other countries, but it only takes a little bit of complacency to push us all into another lockdown. It may sound… Read more: Lockdown update: back to freedom after 56.5 days
Found and liked this definition of expert in James Clear‘s newsletter. The physicist Niels Bohr on what it takes to be an expert: “An expert is a person who has found out by painful experience all the mistakes that one can make in a very narrow field.” The oldest source I could find was “Dr. Edward Teller’s Magnificent Obsession” in LIFE magazine. September 6, 1954.
Last night I woke up to this emergency alert: Auckland returned to lockdown alert level 3 since this noon: 12 noon on Wednesday 12 August. The rest of New Zealand moved to alert level 2. I was shocked because last night I went to sleep planning to make the most of today, which I took off from work for working last Sunday. I wasn’t following news and had no idea of events leading up to this second lockdown. So having to wake up in the middle of my sleep to the emergency beeper of my phone freaked me out. We… Read more: Lockdown returns
Anytime you see a committee of more than ten, it isn’t the real committee. There’s a subcommittee somewhere making the decisions. Pg. 37, What I learned losing a million dollars I think this is very true in many settings.
Seven days ago I turned thirty-seven. I took the day off in lieu for working the previous Saturday. My wife took off from her work too. My wife and son surprised me with a couple of gifts, one of which is my favourite organic dark chocolate from a local co-op. Given the current world events, I did not feel too excited to venture anywhere outside our lovely neighbourhood. I spent the rest of the day with my wife and son, chatting together, playing video games, and eating out at our favourite places. I also spoke to my parents, brother, sister… Read more: 37
I am not surprised by this, but it feels weird to realize actually getting spied! I am sure there will be many more instances of spying and it feels normal over time, but here’s the first one for the record.
I realize in the tweet sent from my previous post I sounded like I sent a pre-populated tweet some services encourage you to share right after signing up for them. 😬 That tweet isn’t something HEY populated or nudged me to send. I should have written a personable custom message to go along with my previous post. Nevertheless, I am excited about signing up for HEY!
Last night I bought my @hey.com email address subscription after trying it for a few days. I have been following HEY ever since Jason gave a heads up earlier this year. Since this is from Basecamp, I knew it is going to be amazing and it is! I signed up as soon as I got an invite a few days ago and I loved everything about it: the onboarding, speed, features, simplicity and privacy. But most importantly, I subscribed to the HEY Manifesto and the principles of its principals Jason and DHH and their Small Tech company, Basecamp. I never… Read more: Hey, HEY!
New Zealand is moving to lockdown alert level 1 —and a return to mostly normalcy— from this midnight. Only border restrictions are in place. I am glad it is over! It won’t be as normal as before all this, and it is still important to follow the hygiene and physical distancing practices, but overall, given how broken the world is right now, I am grateful for where I am. I couldn’t be anywhere better! Here is the full timeline of New Zealand lockdown. God Defend New Zealand. Here is the summary of Covid-19 virus cases in New Zealand.
I upgraded my fibre internet to Fibre Ultra, technically called Gigabit fibre which has the advertised speeds of 900 Mbps down and 500 Mbps up. First, some backstory. My first fibre connection I got in 2018 was solid (Fibre 100 – 100 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up). After some time I grew unhappy with the puny 20 Mbps upload speed. I felt uplink could be better and so I upgraded in 2019 to Fibre 200 which doubled the download speed, but oddly enough it did not change the upload speed. So I saw no point in paying extra just… Read more: Fibre Ultra
After eight weeks of stricter levels (4 and then 3) of lockdown, things seem to be getting better. We are currently in level 2 and have been since Thursday. It is great to see people returning to the streets and generally going about their businesses. Today we went to our favourite cafe in the morning. As always, the baristas made great coffee. After that, we went to our favourite place in the neighbourhood and grabbed bread from our favourite bakery. In the afternoon I drove past a restaurant that’s usually crowded but was ghosted for the past many weeks. I… Read more: Lockdown update: returning to routines
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced today New Zealand would move from alert level 3 to level 2 at 11.59pm on the night of Wednesday 13 May; that’s seven weeks after we entered the strictest lockdown. On Thursday, 14 May, cafes, restaurants, libraries, gyms, malls, cinemas, tourism operators, and sports clubs can reopen. On Monday, 18 May, kids will be able to return to school. On Thursday, 21 May, bars will be able to open. I have no interest in bars, malls or cinemas. But I am looking forward to schools, cafes and libraries reopening soon. It is great to be… Read more: Lockdown update: down to level 2 from Thursday
New Zealand eased into a less severe Level 3 of lockdown today (from 00:00 on April 28th), after about five-and-half weeks of strict lockdown in Level 4 that started from 11:59 pm on March 25th. We are going to stay in Level 3 for two weeks until May 11th. On May 11th, the cabinet will announce the nation’s next step in the fight against Covid-19. In a great piece of news, the new Covid-19 cases over the past eight days remained in single digits. I am also delighted to see the overall number of infected New Zealanders in the sub-1500… Read more: Lockdown update: down to level 3