Colin Charles Agenda

I rebooted (or was forced to reboot) my 16″ MacBook Pro and I am pleased to inform that I can stream music and have audio playback in Chrome without it breaking. It had an uptime of nearly 90 days… so basically I’ve not rebooted since moving to it.

WordPress Gutenberg is better than I expected. I have been writing in Markdown in BBEdit and then just copy/pasting into Gutenberg. I have not used MarsEdit once to write this new series of blog posts… I know Gutenberg received a lot of flak, but I know the lead behind it (Hi Pento!) and I think it is a great editor. I should start looking at the WordPress mobile apps again. The last time we spoke, we had a long conversation at the BA First Class Lounge in London Heathrow Terminal 5. Which is such a cliché place for me to meet folk, isn’t it? While I can’t regale the conversation, there was a lot of me suggesting what I’d love to see in WordPress and how the opportunities should not be missed.

Today, the Prime Minister announced a further extra 14 days of Movement Control Order — this basically means a 28 day partial lockdown. It also translates to the fact that I would spend 1.5 months in Kuala Lumpur, longest time I’ve been here, and most of it, at home. I quite miss the lifestyle I am used to having.

Keeping active via a yoga mat, and HIIT workouts is still something I can do; today it was Nick and Ishaq, very fun overall. Markets are up, up, up, everywhere… so to celebrate, I had the usual breakfast (soft boiled eggs, a slice of bread), a lunch of steak & veggies (loving the fact that I stocked up on meat), and a dinner of bihun (noodles) with a side of ice cream (also glad I stocked up there).

A sad note that O’Reilly Media (ORM) laid off a lot of their staff. No more conferences. Even editors (like Andy Oram) I have known are gone. This is a terrible time for this to happen and I think their events really made a difference in my professional life. I will miss Gina Blaber, Suzanne Axtell, Audra Carter, Patrick Dirden, Sophia DeMartini, Vee McMillen, and many more who this move affected.

I worked with the crew extensively for the MySQL User Conferences, and I’ve spoken at multiple OSCON’s, Velocity’s, and so on. It truly is the end of an era. I’ve made friendships, found fellow Malaysians (Shirley, now at Amazon), and it has been one hell of a ride. Not doing events, say OSCON in Portland is probably also horrible for the economy of Portland (it was always enjoyable; I consider OSCON like I do FOSDEM – a must go for; and now I regret not finding time to go last year. My last OSCON was 2018 (and I was planning on a 2020 return); 2019 was me sitting in London for a couple of weeks that clashed. All in, I know I’m going to miss their events.

Covid-19, the coronavirus, I talk about it to folk, saying it is going to change a lot for us, because things we think are coming back, may not. And today, I see something that affects, even me. On a much larger global scale. Shutting down an economy is remarkably easier than starting it back up. We made open source just fine without conferences (1998+ for me), but the reality is that the moment I went to my first linux.conf.au, and before that, Linux User Groups, it became abundantly clear that we could learn a lot by sitting down and focusing, as well as chatting to people, affectionally known as the hallway track.

I don’t know how else the coronavirus is going to change, but today’s Life with Rona truly was a bit of a bummer.

Day started early, to start on work, have breakfast, and also do Ping’s booty popping class. Who knew an Instagram live stream would be so fun? I’m going to do Ishaq & Nick’s class tomorrow as well (both are in my top 5 instructors at flycyle).

Lunch was yesterday’s nasi lemak, fried up like fried rice (nasi lemak goreng). Tea was a slice of cheesecake. Dinner lately is becoming a thing of the past, but I will be up early tomorrow and there would be no IF or anything.

Been looking at the 2020 iPad Pro’s and it looks like from a performance perspective, I don’t need it. This is great, because I’ll only be buying the new keyboard, so some expenses in May then.

We see London practically lockdown like Malaysia, but you do get to go out once for exercise! Paris has pretty harsh lockdowns. Singapore is also more or less moving towards a lockdown. Been talking to friends about ensuring we continue our Cambodian house build later in October; so far all is as per plan.

I saw Malaysia’s Health DG, Hisham today on TV. Articulate, and he’s not just a good health DG, he could easily be the Health Minister, or heck, even the Prime Minister. He handled the press conference very well. We’re at 15 deaths now. I view that as a great use of thirty minutes.

Stocks… markets seem to be up today. KL. USA. Everywhere. REITS are not the safe haven they once were… we’ve seen Invesco Mortgage Capital say they can no longer fund margin calls. Malaysia’s Bank Negara has told banks that there is an automatic moratorium to be applied for all loans; and credit card debt can move to a 3 year max term loan with a max interest of 13%. This is going to free up a lot of liquidity during the time of Covid-19, and will ensure that defaults reduce (they’ll happen, just not as soon as you think).

Time to read and hit the sack, early morning again.

It’s just another manic Monday.

Singapore Airlines has joined Cathay Pacific in slashing 96% of their routes. AirAsia is probably going to ground planes, MAS hasn’t provided a plan, but AirAsia is clear that they can’t even guarantee jobs. I guess we should expect some form of bailouts. Hong Kong just said there was a huge chunk of change for affected airlines (as they have locked down borders too; Hong Kong’s current wave is coming in from foreign imports).

Miss Wong’s in Siem Reap has shut her doors; I used to go there a couple times at least once a year, when I go to build a house for the poor. Siem Reap tourism was already dropping a little last year, so I guess Covid-19 just accelerated the process this year.

Malaysia got an address from the Prime Minister today (we recorded more deaths at 14, a huge spike in cases). He basically said you get stimulus of up to RM500 from your EPF Account 2. So rob your future self, by taking out money today. Sure it will unlock over RM40 billion if all take it out. But really? This is such a bad idea. It is also abundantly clear that many EPF contributors don’t have enough stashed in their Account 2 to even be benefitting from this.

I read a good article about families in low cost flats finding it hard to socially distance themselves (something like 7 people share 600sqft of space). On cable TV, there were interviews of people who live for the day up north, finding it hard to eat more than a meal a day, and now it consists of rice and soya sauce because they’re so poor and the MCO is affecting their livelihoods. I am speechless this is happening to fellow Malaysians.

In further news, we see the Prime Minister say that foreigners (think illegal workers too) will have to pay for their Covid-19 tests; takes DG Hisham to make another statement contrary to that. He seems to be the hero we all need. Singapore has agreed to open source their TraceTogether app (Bluetooth based contact tracing); let us see when the code gets released.

Unifi (Telekoms broadband) is having issues accessing some stuff on Amazon S3. It is clearly affecting my work. Routing issues because Maxis seems to be fine.

Work front, the only thing to say is: So much to do, so little time.

I woke up past my alarm, because it turns out the alarm did not ring. My iPhone seemed to have been completely dead (despite being plugged into the charger) and I had to do the Up/Down Volume then long press the power button. This is the first time it has happened to this iPhone (new, big, 3 cameras), though I’ll admit the uptime on the phone must have been weeks because I don’t power cycle it (it only gets a reboot during a software update which I feel I haven’t done in a while; all hail automatic updates).

I did something weird today — I got out the yoga mat, and joined some 500+ people at Ping’s Booty Popping class which she did live on Instagram. I mounted the iPad Pro on a chair and got a 30+ minute workout that got the Apple Watch happy. It is kind of a HIIT workout, so I hope I don’t feel pain tomorrow. I also did a 2.5+ minute plank (It was supposed to be a 5 minute plank, also via Nick who had given the push up challenge of yesterday). Spin instructors, always keeping you moving even when you don’t have a bike!

Enjoyed a bit more of the GrabFood subsidy via venture capitalists and ordered from Kenny Rogers today (same buy 2 get 1 free deal). I haven’t had Kenny Rogers in quite sometime (think a decade?) and it tasted quite good with the side dishes; besides who can pass up a RM16/meal deal?

I did get some work done, a bit of reading, and a bit of chatting. There was also a 2.5h Zoom hangout with my close set of friends (seems that this is getting longer). We just lamented that we left school approximately 20 years ago and now we see the IB exams are postponed (not happening in May, affecting 200,000 students). We did the O Level examinations, which were also around the same timeframe, 20 years ago. How time flies, and I never would have expected we’d be under a Movement Control Order.

The entire talk this weekend is how the MCO will be extended by another 2 weeks. The effects are going to be extremely detrimental and the government seems extremely clueless as to doing anything (and they love clawing back things, i.e. when people made noise about a 150% raise in prices of masks from 80 sen to RM2, they seemed to have rolled it back; now they’re saying only the head of the household can go out to buy groceries). In other news, what seems to be a rumour is that they don’t want you going a 10km radius around your home; all in ridiculous if true. There is so much fake news being spread though… it is shocking.

Singapore has virtually imposed border controls without calling it that. Thailand seems to have a surge in cases and my friends in Bangkok are in for a 3 week “lockdown”. London clearly seems to be focused on more lockdowns as well; and a nice beautiful sunny Sunday has gotten people out but not apart from each other. Parks are closing in response. We can’t have nice things because people abuse them!

I did my Sunday morning weigh in and I’m pleased that the weight is dropping a little despite not being able to spin (or hit the elliptical; or swim). I guess it also has a lot to do with eating a controlled portion of food, and ensuring I get a long break between an early dinner and breakfast (not religious about intermittent fasting; if it happens, it happens).

Malaysia is now at 10 deaths, most still linked to the tabligh cluster. What goes on at a Tablighi Jamaat event? I’ve read the Wikipedia entry, a few articles about people who were there, but there is nothing extremely comprehensive of how this several day affair leads you to have such a high infection rate. What was good was that today, at least from the Galen Centre, we see the amount of hospital beds, and the usage rate of the ICU and if memory serves, it is less than 20% utilised at the moment. But a lot of doctors themselves are also getting sick thanks to lying patients. I am reminded of Dr. Gregory House (I watched all of House, M.D.; even own a handful of DVDs; so sad to see it is not streaming on Netflix) who believes that Everybody Lies.

In other news, an old friend, Sabri (hi!), mentioned someone else is keeping a quarantine blog, so here’s Paolo. And Niki is blogging again.

As predicted, Oura was not pleased with me (some 5+ hours of sleep). Woke up to polish of a presentation, make a recording of it, and send it along. On a Saturday.

Semantics matter. I am wondering if journalists need to be a bit harder on the Health Minister, the Prime Minister, and the rest of his Cabinet. It is clear there is a very thin line between a Movement Control Order/Restricted Movement Order and a lockdown. Very thin (basically saying you need permits from the police to leave your house is all that Malaysia is missing).

Malaysia is at 8 deaths now (Singapore reported her first 2). The army will be around tomorrow. I expect more folk to be panicking. The key is still to be testing, though I am wondering why Malaysia is doing poorly here; it is also beginning to seem like testing only happens in Kuala Lumpur, whereas the rest of Malaysia sends it over to be tested. If only there was more upfront information about this.

Telcos in Malaysia are offering free data to keep people home. DiGi is my primary telco, but being on a business line, the offer doesn’t seem to apply. Silly because it is business people who are working at home that also need more data!

I’m seeing more politicians post messages about them staying at home and encouraging Malaysians to do the same. Some from their own pools. Some from their gyms. Some from the comforts of their palace. I feel all this is extremely tone deaf considering families live in 600sqft places and find it clearly hard to be socially distanced from each other.

I did a bit of a HIIT workout on a yoga mat I got years ago. Well, not necessarily HIIT — it was pushups (I managed 55, with breaks of course) and a bit of 180 squat jumps with some toilet paper rolls. Ref: TOILET PAPER WORKOUT….YES YOU HEARD ME RIGHT!. The pushups were sort of a challenge from Nick one of my spin instructors, and I learned about the toilet paper squat jumps from a friend Steph, and I enjoyed another spin instructor Chao’s music. Spotify is clearly a lot better than Apple Music when you subscribe to other people’s playlists. Boy do I miss a spin bike. I would buy a Peloton or SoulCycle bike if they sell it in more markets!

Post HIIT I was extremely sweaty. Maybe it is because I was not in my usual Lululemon workout clothes? Enjoyed sometime outside on a Zoom call that lasted for longer than I expected; again it was friends shooting the shit. We also benefitted from Zoom removing the 40-minute call limit which was very nice of them.

Worth noting that if you’re going to a grocery store, stuff that is backordered and sold out regularly tends to be eggs, chicken, milk and bread.

With the increase in deaths and the numbers going up, many are stating that Malaysia gets another 2 weeks of MCO. Frankly 2 weeks itself is a disaster, what more a whole month? No one is talking about aid. Newspapers are starting to ask if we’re prepared for a recession and people have opined that getting companies to stop the EPF matching payments make sense. I can’t imagine why everyone goes for the EPF — that is retirement savings. You’re practically robbing yourself tomorrow, to pay yourself today. The government does not help you in retirement. So much has to change.

Work has been busier than ever. I am not having to adjust to much, because I have never worked in an office, ever. I’ve been a 100% remote worker from day 1. Ever since I started working on open source in maybe 1998? The only adjustment for me is not flying around for ~250 days a year. So I’ll admit that my home office isn’t the best in terms of a setup, because if I ever needed longer periods of work time in KL, I do have an office; or I’d run away to Kuantan!

Anyway I do joke with a friend that I’d very much like to someday do an office job, the whole 9-5, but then I was told that it really is a 9-6, and there’s all this rush hour traffic you have to contend with. In fact, the only rush hour traffic I contend with is when I go to spin class early in the morning (I missed one class so far due to abnormal traffic; and then said I never wanted such an early class again!). So I don’t know if I would ever be ready for a 9-6. But I feel that I’ve missed out on a life experience many do go through.

I notice I have a podcast queue to go through. I listen to no podcasts when I’m not commuting generally. Or audiobooks. I have Spotify on my machines now; so I will admit I’m using Apple Music less.

We have more confirmation that the army is coming on Sunday for this partial lockdown. Oh dear. I guess the communications is a tragic comedy after all… this is what happens when you’re led by incompetents. This is martial law without calling it martial law. But we are reassured that there is no intention of calling it an emergency. Really? These people change their minds on a daily basis.

Cathay Pacific announced a 96% reduction in flights till end May 2020. They will still fly to KL but 3 times a week? And to just 15 destinations. NYC has been removed from the list. What a disaster. I was hoping to get back in the air come April. Maybe this will have to wait, after all.

I feel our journalists are doing an “ok” job, but are largely failing us, in Malaysia. We know that the 2nd death was of a 34 year old, mosque attendee but we do not know why he passed. Was there an underling issue? We have no idea what the situation is with test kits? We have almost no recovery stories and we have no idea what hospital capacities are at (we hear the primary Sg. Buloh hospital is full). We also hear that people are lying to doctors about their whereabouts, and this is putting medical staff in trouble too; they too have to get treated.

Netflix and YouTube have announced a reduction in streaming quality in Europe, to conserve bandwidth.

I am starting to get more SMS messages, mass sent, by the government. Why they did not use this earlier, one wonders?

It is confirmed our Health Minister is really not very bright. He went on TV to say that you should drink warm water, to kill the virus as it goes down your throat and the stomach acids finish it off. Social media went crazy with this.

We are starting to see Chinese media ask where the novel coronavirus really came from? They are starting to shift blame from Wuhan to America. It is ironic, because I was in Hong Kong in early October 2019, and spent the weekend in Central. I was asked how I saw it ending, and on 8 October 2019, said this, “Lam says she doesn’t need China help yet today. So… she’s hinting. But also I doubt China can pull anything. Maybe they’ll introduce sars soon to stop. Bioterror”. Back then it seemed like my mind was dark, but I did not see HK protests ending any other way.

We are seeing more countries shut their borders, Australia is claiming that they’re going for a 6 month shutdown. I bought this unlimited AirAsiaX pass (consider it a flying bond), but now I can’t use it just yet; I do hope that Korea/Tokyo is ready soon!

Almost right before bed, I see the UK say the government would step in and cover the cost of 80% of salary up to £2,500/month for any employee that is furloughed rather than made redundant. This is amazing; Malaysia needs to up her game.

Today is a late night for me (early morning?); I have been uncannily busy. Writing a presentation. Coding. Writing. Emails. Calls. Proposals. Oura will not be happy tomorrow.