Author: Eddy Young
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Objects that tell stories
Today I replaced the batteries of my Photon Micro-Light and gave it a bit of TLC. With some elbow-grease, the little torch was once again clean and shiny. Although it shows wear from being carried on my keychain for 20 years, it still evokes happy memories. I bought three of the novel and rather expensive…
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Are Mauritians racist?
On /r/mauritius there is an interesting albeit controversial discussion about racism in Mauritius. It is interesting that every participant thinks that some other community, presumably not their own, is racist. One says that the Chinese and Muslims suffer the most prejudice; another, that the Chinese are the most racist; yet another, that the Creoles and…
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Thoughts of Marcus Antoninus Aurelius
I recently finished reading Thoughts of Marcus Antoninus Aurelius, a collection of Emperor Antoninus’s thoughts about Stoic principles. The format of the book is notable in that each ‘thought’ is written in short sentences, sometimes even in just one phrase but rarely more than a few paragraphs. I like the book because it shows a…
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Don’t have floorboards in the kitchen, they said
Shortly after buying our house we went shopping for decoration materials. We wanted floorboards in all the rooms on the ground floor so that it was a seamless polished wood surface from the front door all the way into the kitchen at the back. That wish went against the general wisdom of not laying wood…
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Vaccinated. But safe?
So this is it. I’ve had my second shot of the AstraZeneca vaccine. Let’s hope it works and continues to work against new variants.
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BFF
Once, we met Patrick on a busy Paris metro train in a very unexpected way. He, his wife and daughter, and his parents were travelling from Canada to visit his brother. Priscilla and I had flown in from London the evening before to celebrate my birthday. Neither Patrick, nor I knew that the other would…
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WOW
My sleep pattern is wrecked. I go to bed at around 2 a.m. most days, except when my body crashes and forces me to an early sleep. I then have a very good rest, but only to recover for more 2 a.m. bedtimes. In short, it swings from one extreme to the other. Now, my…
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Old new friends
I was added to an alumni WhatsApp group and got to talk to my old high-school (or college) friends again. It’s interesting to see that after 27 years, the same cliques exist, the same people monopolise the conversation, and there are the same quiet ones. There’s also the dichotomy of the friends who live in…
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What’s in a name?
Many years ago Ms Jiang, our Mandarin teacher, asked us for our names, went away for a few days, and came back with the Chinese equivalents. For a long time I wondered how she managed to do that, given that the names on our official documents are approximate English transliterations of the Chinese originals at…
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US$ 0.68, postage included
If you don’t know what AliExpress (https://www.aliexpress.com) is, wherever you’re buying your stuff from, you’re probably paying too much. The best way to describe it is with an example. The gimmicks in this picture are USB LEDs that light up when they are inserted into a USB connector. They turn any USB power source into…