Author: mdjasrie

2020, the year the world changed.

It happened once in my lifetime as far as I can remember and as far as global repercussions are concerned. It was on September 11, 2001 when two planes were hijacked and crashed through the World Trade Center in New York. Instantaneously, the future trajectory of the world changes. If we could invent a dimensional portal to another parallel universe where this didn’t happen, the world will definitely have looked very different indeed. This singular event threatened global stability.

Other events that threatened global stability include the SARS of 2003 (which served as a wake up call for the world in handling future pandemics) and the global financial crisis of 2008.

But now as we see Covid-19 making its way around the world, we are only starting to see the damage that is being done to the global economy as billions of people are in lockdown in their respective countries, trying their best to slow down the spread of the virus, so that health care needs are not overwhelmed.

We can only stay home, wait and see till it all blows over to see the extent of the damage.

For now, I am lucky to be in Singapore. With an excellent health care system, a highly transparent government that gives detailed press briefings on the situation of the pandemic on a daily basis and the measures the government is taking to slow down infection rates an prevent the virus from spread within the community on a large scale, day to day life is still relatively normal in Singapore. Retail outlets, bars and restaurants are still open. Of course there are minor inconveniences here and there, such as filling out personal details for contact tracing, temperature screenings, and Business Continuity Plans being in placed to reduce social mingling among colleagues. These are truly minor inconveniences as compared to near total lockdown other country have imposed on their people. They can’t work, shops and restaurants must be closed and personal movement is restricted. All these is done so as to ‘flatten the curve’ and slow down the spread of the Coronavirus. I cannot imagine how it must have felt when suddenly you are told that you cannot go outside except to buy groceries, seek medical care or walk your dog. Literally overnight your daily routines are upended.

Calamities that changed the world and moving house.

What does these two have in common? Well, for my family at least, it seems that this is the second time we are moving house in a midst of a global calamity. I remember moving house to Woodlands from Yishun in late 2001. I remembered moving to our new house with some furniture still missing (we bought them, but it hasn’t arrive yet). We were having takeout dinner in the living room with the new coffee table, but no sofa yet. The TV was already set up at one corner of the living room. As we were having dinner on the 11th of September 2001, two planes were headed towards the twin towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan. That singular event will forever be seared in my mind. It changed the world completely. I remember a sense of dread the next morning as I went to school, unable to focus on school work for much of the day, with the clip on TV of the planes crashing onto the buildings like missiles constantly looping in my mind. I was only 14. But I understood the implications and the severity of that singular event.

Fast forward almost 20 years later, and my parents are moving house again. 2020 was the planned year in which they will officially start hunting for a new house, sell the old one, start renovating and finally moving and settling down to their new house. It will be their retirement home moving forward. My parents aren’t young anymore. So it was important for them to choose a house and furnish it well so that they can live the rest of their days in bliss. Usually, such a move requires lots of planning, and the whole process will take at least the better half of a year.

Now, we are in the midst of moving. Renovation is about to start on the new home. It will take about two weeks or so, while we finalise the logistics of furniture delivery, kitchen appliances delivery, packing and finally moving. Their target date to finally settle into their new house will be no later than 1st May. They started house hunting back in December. Got a buyer for their old house in January. Made the transaction over several weeks, dealing with paperwork and such. I was right. Moving house takes a better part of half a year.

Coronavirus is raging globally and a catastrophe on such an epic scale is happening in the midst of our move. What a coincidence!

The world will remember what life was like B.C. (Before Coronavirus) and what life will be like A.C. (After Coronavirus).

New iPad Pros! And Magic Keyboard!

Apple suddenly announced a pair for brand new iPad Pros, coming sometime next week. It features an updated CPU with more horsepower than the previous model, even promoting as being faster than most computer notebooks currently out there on the market. It also features new cameras and LIDAR technology all packed into a tiny package with the camera bump at the back of the iPad Pro. This enables a better augmented reality experience for creative apps and for gaming.

However, after looking at the specs, aside from the faster CPU and new camera technology, I still feel that my current iPad Pro is blazingly fast for my type of use. I also don’t use the camera much on the iPad Pro. In other words, there isn’t really much the new iPad Pro has on offer that would make want to upgrade. However, the new Magic Keyboard is another story altogether.

A floating cantilever design, that allows for better height and angle adjustment caught my attention the moment I laid eyes on this new Magic Keyboard.

Apple will also release a new Magic Keyboard that not only feature a Touchpad, (bringing touchpad support to the iPad for the first time), but also a unique cantilever design, allowing the iPad to ‘float’ once it attaches magnetically at the back. This allows the iPad Pro to have better height and angle adjustment than before, allowing you to get the perfect viewing angle. And the best part is that the Magic Keyboard is compatible the previous generation iPad Pro.

Personally, I find the new cantilever design on the Magic Keyboard just look sick and a little futuristic. I mean, this is a tablet. But once you attach the tablet to this Magic Keyboard, it becomes this whole different beast. Design wise, I think Apple nailed it this time round. I think it is safe to say, that this will greatly enhance the experience of using the iPad Pro. Finally, desk bound users of the iPad Pro can look forward to an accessory that will make the entire setup look professional, hence the name, iPad Pro.

A couple of other great features include USB-C passthrough that allows charging and backlit keyboard. Now, its a little too early to tell how the keys will feel while typing onto his new Magic Keyboard. It appears that it is going back to the chiclet style keys on the keyboard or maybe the scissor mechanism. I all in when it comes to the backlit feature, but not too sure about the feeling of the keys yet. I love the feeling of the current Smart Keyboard Folio. I really allows me to type fast and accurate with just the right amount of key travel. Even the size is just perfect on the 11 inch model.

Now, the disappointing part of the new Magic Keyboard is the price. Holy hell, its more than SGD300 just for the Magic Keyboard! It’s close to 500 for the 12 inch version. Once I saw the price, I am now hesitant. Should I really get the new Magic Keyboard. I think it all boils down to the feeling of the keyboard. And that is something I must try before I buy.

New Zealand imposes mandatory 14-day quarantine on all international passengers

When I read that headline, I was relieved.

Let me tell you why.

Back in December sometime during Christmas, there was talk with my travel buddies to plan for another road trip. They wanted to go somewhere, anywhere, for a road trip during the first half of 2020. I tentatively agreed to the idea at first despite an anticipated busy work schedule in the first 4 months of 2020, especially April. I suggested May, but it was a little too late for some of them. We then agreed on end of March, since I had a small window of opportunity to go for a road trip, before a flurry of activity awaited in the office upon coming back from the holiday leading to the month of April.

We were discussing where to go and I suggested New Zealand, which none of them had gone to, except me. I was not overly enthusiastic about going there again, but I didn’t mind at all, since New Zealand is such a beautiful country and enjoying the sights and nature will definitely do me more good than harm by getting away from work and allows me de-stress a little before April arrives.

At that point in December, nothing was set in stone yet as we couldn’t nail down the exact dates where all of us could take time off to embark on a road trip to New Zealand. We then agreed to confirm and meet again to plan our itinerary sometime right after Chinese New Year, toward the end of January.

At that point in time, news of the Coronavirus hadn’t caught on yet (despite the fact that the earliest infections recorded could have been as early as November 2019, but no one new that it was a novel Coronavirus). It was the week leading up to Chinese New Year, when multiple news agencies picked up various reports coming from China that a mysterious new virus has been seen spreading in Hubei province. The news caught on like wildfire, with the situation in China rapidly changing on a daily basis.

I remember at that time, China moved swiftly to impose travel restrictions around the country and began imposing total lockdown in various parts of Hubei province. The authorities in China were serious. They knew something serious and bad was happening in Wuhan. The situation wasn’t any better when it took place during the Chinese New Year period, where the movement of people is at its maximum throughout China. Soon, Singapore and the surrounding region in close proximity to China received confirmation that the virus has arrived in the countries from people arriving from China.

When that happened I had the gut feeling that this was going to get worse. It was a new, unknown virus. We don’t know how easily it can spread, its mortality rate and the symptoms one can get when one is infected. A lot of unknowns were hung up in the air, as thousands get infected every day in China. I had to be the party pooper and told my friends that I no longer felt safe to travel during this period because of the developments in China. I told them to wait and see and put our trip on hold.

Fast forward roughly two months from the moment I backed out from the planned trip, and we are now seeing over 160 000 infections all around the world. Europe is the new epicentre in the virus spread and part of the second wave of infections after China successfully managed to contain the spread from within their borders. Now the number of infected worldwide is increasing again at an exponential rate. Countries all over the world are imposing travel restrictions against one another and Singapore and New Zealand are no exception. Despite the fact that Singapore has largely been successful in containing the outbreak and minimising local transmissions and that New Zealand has only detect 8 people with the virus, given that the disease is now a pandemic, it is natural that New Zealand needs to protect itself from import cases coming from places like China, South Korea, the EU and the USA. So they impose mandatory quarantine on all international travellers.

Looking back, I was right in following my gut feeling in not moving ahead with the itinerary planning and all the flight and hotel bookings bookings, as the trip would have been impossible given the travel restriction New Zealand has just imposed today on all international travellers. I feel relieved that I did not have to go through high levels of anxiety regarding my upcoming trip to New Zealand, if all our accommodations and flight arrangements been made back in January.

Coronavirus, now in more than 120 countries and counting

As of today, there are close to 160 000 infections around the world. The number of infected outside China is going to exceed those from within China. Europe is the new epicenter of the outbreak, with countries like Italy, Spain, France, and Germany reporting cases in the thousands.

More than 120 countries around the world have reported cases of the Coronavirus.

On the home front in Singapore, we are seeing a sharp increase in the number of cases, a majority of them imported from other countries. These people traveled overseas, caught the virus and got sick and tested positive upon arrival. Today, as of this writing, Singapore reported 14 new cases, the highest reported in a single day, with 9 of them coming from other countries. This is a disturbing trend, because despite putting additional resources in detecting them early on our borders and imposing travel restrictions from places where the virus is spreading rapidly, we are still seeing a rapid number of imported cases.

The tiny good news is that local transmission within the community is still small and manageable. However these imported cases are often not caught at the border as they are largely asymptomatic upon arrival. It is only laters, as they assimilated within our community upon arrival do they see symptoms related to the coronavirus. Each one of these new imported cases is a ticking time bomb, being able to spread to the local community as soon as symptoms appear. If they don’t practice social distancing, avoiding crowded places and refuse to see a doctor at the earliest onset of symptoms, then they are susceptible to spreading to a large number of people around him or her.

It feels like as the second wave of infection are arriving from Europe and the Americas, and with infections on the rise in nearby ASEAN, nations, we are struggling in keeping those numbers down. We are being bombarded with imported cases that have the potential to create a new infectious cluster in Singapore.

Europe is in a very bad state, thousands of new infections reported in total within the EU region with no end in sight. I just hope that imposing a lockdown on the entire nation like what Italy and Spain has done will start to bear fruit and see the numbers of newly infected come down. Europe hasn’t peaked yet, meaning we will see tens of thousands of new cases in the coming week. And the US is just started its upward exponential trajectory of infections.

Coronavirus: Now in 70 countries and counting

Just a couple of weeks ago, I gave my own personal opinion of how I feel about the novel Coronavirus that is spreading all over the world, in particular, China, toward the end of February. At that time, the world was fixated on China. Many were asking: Can China contain the outbreak? Were measures that the Chinese government implemented to control the spread of the virus effective in containing the spread among local communities? How many more infections and death will be see before infection rates taper off and start to decrease? We are now seeing the effects of those measures and they have largely been effective. But while those extreme measures that China impose on its people to restrict its movement and consequently, limit the spread, is working, the country will now have to grapple with the virus that could potentially come from another country.

Who would have thought that within a week or so, the number of people infected with the virus in South Korea would increase from around 50 to 5000? South Korea is not the only one having to grapple with a sudden surge of infections within their own country. Outside of Asia, we are seeing hotspots in the Middle East, in particular Iran, and Europe, like France, Germany and worst affected of all, Italy. These hotspots are increasing the likelihood that the world will experience a global pandemic, regardless of how effective China is dealing with this outbreak at this point of time. Even if China can keep new infections low and lift travel curbs within the country, they now have to deal with potential infections from travellers entering China.

We are now seeing a slow burn of the disease spreading through various communities in the USA. Like a hot, glowing goal that refuses to die, hot enough to still burn. No doubt, we will be seeing a lot more Coronavirus cases in the coming days and weeks as people who are infected start to show symptoms of the disease. By then, its too late to do comprehensive contact tracing for these people as local transmissions has already happen.

The world is now approaching the 100k milestone in terms of the number of people infected since the beginning of the outbreak that occured in Wuhan, China. The WHO has not yet declared a pandemic, but all signs point to one. With 70 countries now having cases of the disease within their borders, and the numbers creeping up as new infections are detected from various countries on a daily basis, I think the world cannot afford another South Korea style surge of new cases anywhere. Containing and mitigating the spread of the virus in South Korea, Iran and Italy is already a headache of the world (just look at the damage been done in terms of the number of new infections originating from Iran and Italy).

Right now, living in Singapore, I am truly grateful to have an effective government doing all its best to protect its citizens and implement measures that are sensible and manageable to keep the number of new infections low. We have been lucky. Singapore has been lucky. We have over a hundred cases now, but we have yet to see large surges in new infections. But all these efforts of containment and mitigation will be in vain, if the rest of the world burns. It is simply impossible to close off out borders completely, just so that we prevent importing new cases from other countries.

I also want to applaud all the front line healthcare staff who put their lives at risk on a daily basis to not only keep us safe, but protect and health and wellbeing of those infected. I don’t want to jinx it, but despite having more than a hundred cases, there hasn’t been a single death. I think that is largely due to the professionalism of all the front line health care staff, doctors, nurses as well as our overall health care system that we have here in Singapore.

Is this the pandemic of my generation? Will this be the pandemic that I will tell to my children?

Kindle Oasis two-week impressions

Two weeks ago I bought the 2019 version of Kindle Oasis, Amazon’s flagship kindle. I decided to replace my 2016 Kindle Paperwhite when the battery life of the old device started deteriorating badly. I went all out and bought the Oasis.

The Kindle Oasis is the most expensive electronic book reader in the Kindle lineup. I was initially hesitant to get the flagship model, but in the end decided to give it a try. Upon receiving it, I was pleasantly surprised how slim the package was. This makes sense when it comes to shipping. It is always beneficial to delivery items to consumers in flat boxes to save space.

The first thing that I realised when I held the Kindle Oasis in my hands was how hefty the device feels. It’s really solid, none of the lightweight, plasticky feel that you get in lower end models. The back of the Kindle Oasis is made of aluminium, with a glass screen at the front. All these premium material used in the making of the Kindle Oasis most probably added to the heft and weight that I felt the moment I held it in my hands.

The Kindle Oasis has a thicker side and a thinner side. The thinner side is really slim. It makes the device pretty sexy. However, after using the device for about two weeks now (far surpassing my reading goals so far this year by a whopping 7 books), I can’t say that I am a fan of the unequal thickness of the device. I can understand why they made it such, most likely to make the experience of holding the Kindle a little more ergonomic, but I don’t find that to be the case. To me, it just limits the may ways I could hold my Kindle in a variety of different situations. A uniform back would be my preferred design choice.

What I do like about the Kindle Oasis (and most probably the single biggest factor in choosing the Oasis over the ordinary Paperwhite) is the addition of the physical page turning buttons. Although all Kindle models have touch screen ability, the page turning buttons makes the reading experience so much better for me. There are two page turning buttons, one of turn the page forward and another to turn the page backward. I reverse those buttons as I prefer to turn the page forward using the lower button rather than the higher button. That way, I can hold the kindle at a lower position as compared to having to stretch my fingers just to be able to turn the page using the upper button. All in all, the page buttons are by the far the best feature in the Kindle Oasis.

The Kindle Oasis also features the ability to change the temperature of the backlight to something warmer. I have no strong preference on whether to read in cool or warm light, but having the feature is a welcome addition. In the end, my reading lights are a couple of shades warmer than usual, and over time I tend to find reading on the Kindle Oasis with warmer lights a little more pleasant to the eyes, especially when reading in dark places or at night. The Kindle Oasis also allows readers to set the time to gradually change the colour temperature throughout the day. The Kindle Oasis also features auto-adjust brightness that detects ambient light and changes the intensity of the backlight accordingly. Again, I don’t find this feature particularly useful for me as I am totally fine reading whether in bright or dark environments with a fixed level of backlight brightness. What I do appreciate is that the backlight can be much brighter than the lower Kindle models and that there are more LEDs serving as backlights for a more uniform illumination of the entire screen area.

Apart from the physical buttons feature which I love from the Kindle Oasis, it also features a slightly bigger screen. It’s not much bigger by a wide margin (otherwise holding the device to read would be cumbersome) but enough to display more text horizontally which to me, makes for a slightly better reading experience.

So far, I am really enjoying the device a lot. The solid feel of the device and the physical page turning buttons is a welcome addition which makes my reading experience far more enjoyable. Although one downside is the cost. I just feel that the price could be lower, given that, everything else equal, the Kindle Oasis and Paperwhite have the same pixel density and overall, both devices will no doubt give you a good reading experience.