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Weekly notes 49/2024

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Thumbnail image: The Broughton Street Lookout at Milsons Point has some of the best side-angle views of the Harbour Bridge.

What’s been happening #

Ah, another week has gone by and it’ll be a month since I left for Mangalore. I cannot believe how fast time goes by. This week has been a rather busy week. Jason, the product manager for our team, had come down to Sydney to help in our planning for the next year. I started the week skeptical of what we could get done, but thanks to Jason’s great work ethic and phenomenal prep, we got a lot of work done. We discussed through some team org and process changes and did some roadmap planning for the next 6 months.

I also met Umesh (aka Oomz) this week. I’ve followed Umesh since quite some time on Twitter and elsewhere and after a lot of almost-met chances, we finally met in person and had a nice chat.

This was also the week of AWS re:Invent, and while I chose not to be in Las Vegas, I was attending re:Invent vicariously through the AWS Heroes' WhatsApp group that had a lot of Heroes talking about what’s happening. I must admit I had some serious FOMO. Oh well, hopefully I can be there next year. I’ll need to go through what was announced at re:Invent - that’ll be a task for this week.

This week also marked the penultimate guitar class. We usually have a celebration after our last class where everyone gets some snacks and we sit and chat. Luis, our instructor, however, asked us if we could push the celebration to a week prior as he’d be occupied, and we obliged. It was nice to sit, snack, and chat about different things.

Jo did a last-minute ticket purchase for a DPR concert. DPR (short for Dream Perfect Regime) is a South Korean record label founded by Christian Yu (aka DPR Ian). The concert was in Hordern Pavilion at Moore Park, with DPR Arctic kicking it off, followed by DPR Cream and the final session by DPR Ian. I’ve been to a lot of concerts here in Sydney, but this was the first time where the sound quality and engineering were absolutely atrocious. There was a lot of excess bass and reverb with DPR Arctic and DPR Cream, while DPR Ian’s performance was much better, although far worse than the others. Hordern Pavilion has hosted a lot of artists, so I am not sure what happened here. It’s usually a standing-only venue (or at least whenever I see a performance here, there’s no seating), but this concert did have seating, so I am wondering if the seating arrangements caused the acoustics to go bad. Our seats were also at the top of the pavilion, and the beams of the pavilion resulted in a lot of the view being cut off - I wish this was communicated clearly.

DPR concert
DPR concert
DPR concert

What I ate #

It was a week of eating out. I went to a lot of restaurants as Jason was visiting us, so a few lunch/dinners were with him and the rest of my Team.

  • Epicurean, Crown Hotel: Known for their fabulous seafood buffet, the Epicurean is an expensive but expansive buffet featuring seafood (including unlimited freshly shucked oysters and lobster tails), sushi bar, meat station, South East Asian and dessert corner. Skip a meal before you visit this place and ensure you have a nice workout to burn all the calories you’ll put on after eating here. The food is simply fantastic. The restaurant got a bit stuffy, but you can opt to sit out around the balcony while looking at the fabulous views of the bay. Highly recommend a visit for a special occasion!

    Seafood at The Epicurean
    Dessert at The Epicurean

  • Zushi, Barangaroo: Another awesome Japanese place by the Barangaroo wharf. We ordered more sushi and it was so good. You know the food is awesome when everyone’s quiet, hogging all the food.

    Lunch at Zushi
    Lunch at Zushi

  • Toko George Street: A fabulous Japanese izakaya with some amazing sushi and sashimi. We got a seat right in front of the chefs' counter, and to watch them prepare the sushi rolls was mesmerising. Another place that I would highly recommend.

    Lunch at Toko
    Lunch at Toko

  • The Gidley - A fancy steakhouse set in a basement that makes you wonder if you’re going to the right place. Once seated, The Gidley features some interesting gimmicks that makes you remember it long after you’ve visited. From asking to keep your phones in a purse that they lock away so that you’re engaged (honestly though, everyone kept track of the notifications on their smart watches) to the swagger of seeing your waiter put on white gloves to cut your burger and serve you, Gidley ensures your visit is memorable. And if these don’t make it memorable, I can guarantee you, the amazing steaks and sides surely will.

  • Ambi’s Chai Bar: Founded by a Kenya-born Indian, Ambi’s Chai Bar has lots of different varieties of tea - starting with the humble desi chai, masala chai and a lot of other varieties of tea - and pairs the tea with a lot of East African food items. Nice little place to hangout late evenings with good food and tea to match.

    Ambi's Chai Bar
    Ambi's Chai Bar
    Ambi's Chai Bar

  • Himalaya - A small, unassuming little Indian and Pakistani restaurant with some good food and decent service.

    Dinner at Himalaya
    Dinner at Himalaya
    Dinner at Himalaya
    Dinner at Himalaya
    Dinner at Himalaya
    Dinner at Himalaya
    Dinner at Himalaya

What I played #

Path of Exile 2 launched in early access this week and I played it for a few hours, and I had a rough early game, especially with the Monk. I switched over to the Sorceress and that seemed to be a bit easier to play. Here’s some early thoughts:

What’s good:

  • The game looks good and has an amazing soundtrack.
  • The revamped skill system is good, and the skills are well designed. A little too much towards heavily building combos. For example, use the Monk’s Killing Palm to kill enemies with low health instantly and gain a power charge (the game even shows enemies that are eligible to be insta-killed). Use the newly acquired power charges to use charge up Falling Thunder and launch more lightning strikes projectiles that scale with number of charges.
  • Don’t know what a skill does and hard to visualize the text? Click on it and the game gives a demo of the skill in action complete with a voice-over.
  • Combining and launching these combos is immensely satisfying.
  • Dodge roll that can get you out of a tough spot. Almost.
  • Most boss mechanics are easy to dodge because there is no cooldown on dodge roll.

What’s not good:

  • The early game is really rough. Hard to heal, hard to get mana and many bosses means you will die many times, and in many ways that’s unavoidable.
  • Did I mention early game is rough? Even the trash mobs can one-shot you if you don’t concentrate. Make one wrong move and you’re in a boss fight with no means to heal or do damage.
  • Boss mechanics are a lot of dodge-dodge-dodge-dodge-dodge-hit-dodge-dodge-hit-get-stuck-die. Frustrating.
  • Lot of skills can be cancelled and dodge-rolled away. Cool in theory, in practice you end up charging a skill and then cancelling just as you’re about to hit, and now you’re vulnerable and get hit and possibly die.
  • If you don’t find chaining and synergies, you will die.
  • Ranged characters are quite a bit easier because you can avoid being in the one-shot-kill range of many bosses.

Music of the Week #

What You Know is a lovely little song by indie band Two Door Cinema Club.

I’ve been looking for a decent, self-hosted alternative to Buffer.com and it looks like Postiz might fit the bill. I’ll try this soon enough. For those unfamiliar with what Buffer.com does, it and Postiz aims to provide a way to schedule (and cross-post) posts to various social media sites.

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