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Is 2020 going to be the year of the COVID?

This scanning electron microscope image shows SARS-CoV-2 —previously known as 2019-nCoV, the virus that causes COVID-19. Credit: NIAID-RML

It has been only 2 and a half months into 2020 and the world is already in turmoil. The new year started literally with a bonfire that ravaged through large swathes of Australia in January. Just before fresh images of singed cute koalas fade from our minds, Malaysia’s barely 24-months old liberal government was toppled by a rebellion within their own ranks. And before the cursed Sheraton Move fade from the people’s minds, the most consequential once-in-a-generation global pandemic broke out in March.

Suddenly, everyone who is not from China just woke up to the fact that a deadly novel coronavirus has been spreading within their borders and infecting large numbers of their population. Now, I have a lot to say about all of these events. But it is the last one that just boils my blood.

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My day in London

I’m back in my hotel in Paddington, London now. Just finished with a work meeting and my schedule is now free. I like being alone in a foreign country. Allows me to truly explore small places where I can’t go if I were to bring family along.

I’ve spent the whole day planning around this meeting. It was set at 2pm which makes going out for sight seeing to be tedious at best. Also, it is almost winter now in London so the bitter cold air, dampness and overall general weariness hung on to the day like stubborn cobwebs in a dirty barn.  I’ve soiled my sneakers and jeans when I took a morning walk to Kensington High Street for shopping. I had packed super light for the trip and wanted to get a thick long-sleeve t-shirt to sleep in because I’ve brought an Airism wife-beater by mistake.

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OCBC Cycle KL 2019

I’ve finished the entire 42km of the OCBC Cycle KL event today.  And it wasn’t as gruellingly challenging as I feared it was going to be. 

The few of us who were participating made plans to meet at Menara Maxis at 5am, intending to do a roll-out at 5.15am to the site of the flag-off in Dataran Merdeka. While there was a list of names that were floating around in the WhatsApp chat group, in the end, only five of us (Vishal, Agnel, Charene and BX) rode off from our office at 5.45am. 

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Black Hole

On 10th April 2019, humans got their first photograph of an actual blackhole. After years of seeing black holes in sci-fi blockbusters (though to be fair, the most accurate depiction on screen has to be the black hole from Interstellar), the real image seems underwhelming to say the least. But what we have achieved is a major milestone in our understanding of our universe.

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Time for a new laptop

Recently, I had been bitten by the upgrade bug for a notebook. I was looking for something to replace the very reliable Surface Pro 4 2-in-1 that I had been using everyday since it was launched as the main daily driver at work. My must-haves were simple. The following are compulsory features that I am looking for:-

  • Light (I had really grown to like the ultra portability of the Surface Pro line of computers);
  • Large high resolution screen (not necessarily 4k but definitely not 16:9 as I had found the 3:2 form factor to be ideal for work and photography); and
  • Powerful enough to handle my daily work routine (which could range from creating Powerpoint presentations to analyzing complex Excel worksheets to occasionally editing photos on Lightroom).
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Liu Cixin’s Death’s End

Death’s End is the final book of the trilogy that was kicked off by The Three Body Problem. As I have just finished this book, I’ve decided to pen some thoughts and I would have assumed that you had already read no only this book but the entirety of the series. Be warned as there will be major spoilers.

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