The Monday Read

This and that

A busy week, but a good one. I’ve been busy with work but I’m enjoying the weather, being active, keeping up with my physio exercises, and got a new toy. Basically running outside hurts my knees if I overdo it, and exercising in a mask in summer is miserable. As a visible minority here in my suburb of Sendai, I feel I have to be on my bestest behaviour outside, so exercising without the mask is not an option. Hence the toy:

I used to row at school, and was always baffled that none of the gyms here in Sendai have rowing machines. In my opinion they are far superior to exercise bikes or treadmills, and they are much cheaper! This one was… not cheap, but it is excellent quality and feels like the ergos we used to practice on at school.

I made one mistake though: when I was checking it out it said ‘length: 108’ and I thought to myself, “108 cm? That should fit in the spare room”.

Then it got delivered by Sagawa’s moving division as it was too big for the normal takyuubin service, and it turned out to be 108 inches, so around 270 cm. Ooops.

It takes up basically the entire living room. Wife was unimpressed at first, but then I showed her how to use it and now she is slowly coming around.

Well, this was a surprise

I was not expecting this to happen quite so soon, but it did cheer me up more than anything else has recently.

However, there is also a worrying aspect to this. My uni started doing vaccinations for staff from the 12th, and every day there are still dozens or hundreds of unused appointments.

If university teachers and researchers are avoiding getting vaccinated, then a lot of others are going to do so, and then we’re in for a rough winter as the Delta variant chews through the population. Hopefully things will improve as people see their friends and family get vaccinated without incident. I’ll certainly be encouraging my students to get their jabs from June 21st.

The forum

The forum continues to bubble away. Here are the most recent active topics:

This week’s books

Finished reading Sid Meier’s Memoir. Wonderful. Highly recommend, especially if you were playing computer games in the 80s and 90s.

Read Wm. Penn’s latest book of short stories that aim to teach about Japanese inheritance law: The Strange Life of Mrs. Kato. If you liked the first bunch you might enjoy this, or the non-fiction Expat’s Guide to Growing Old in Japan.

Also picked up Andy Weir (The Martian)’s latest: Hail Mary. Looking forward to getting started on that today 🙂

This week’s links

1. Encouraging and depressing all at the same time: The New Productivity Revolution
2. Nice tsumitate NISA info site from Morningstar
3. I didn’t find this particularly convincing, to be honest: The top 9 (bad) arguments against bitcoin
4. This article (from 2011!) was great. Might need to get some training myself: Personal best
5. Related but not the same? Stock market vs earnings growth
6. This is a great idea: Hundreds of companies in Japan apply for on-site vaccinations
7. I really don’t understand why this is available to the general public. Having police and immigration officials use it kind of makes sense, but why does Mr Kato down the road need one?
8. This is pretty impressive retirement income: 【リタイア生活30ヶ月目】2021年6月の収入状況と今後の見込み
9. Hmm. Lots to think about: The future of bear markets
10. We’re all richer than Rockefeller: Getting the goalpost to stop moving
11. Shocking stuff: Should you fire your financial advisor
12. I feel like this when I talk to cryptocurrency fans: Why everyone’s trading
13. This is shocking but not surprising: Tokyo Olympics: It’s really about well-connected people burning up mountains of money
14. Love this: How to lose money
15. Seems easy enough: How to hedge against inflation
16. I like the idea but don’t use it: The permanent portfolio
17. Enjoyed rereading this: The French Burglar Who Pulled Off His Generation’s Biggest Art Heist
18. Great examples: Five lessons from history

What do you think? Anything good in there? I enjoyed #1 and #4, and #13 really annoyed me.