Progress (or not progress, that is the question.)
The other day I needed to write a script that would download images I captured during photo walks and copy them from my camera’s SD card to a folder on my Mac laptop partitioned by year, then date.
I got the ChatGPT write the entire program in NodeJS in four iterations, as well as constructing an Automator script that turned the utility into a desktop shortcut. All took 20 minutes top that went into engineering ChatGPT prompts and pushing the code to Github for source control.
During turbulent years of late 70’s, our university studies were often disrupted by political unrest, demonstrations and violence.
I was an Electrical Engineering student then. In the first year we were taught Fortran IV programming language. We used to write our assignments on punch cards. There were no computer monitors back then. Every line of code needs to be punched on a card using a punch machine. Then we used to assemble decks of cards like bricks and submitted them to an office in the Computer Science building to be processed by a computer. We used to wait for many hours for a printed output. If you dropped a card or mixed the order, your program would not run. Even if it ran ok and produced output, our solution could be wrong. It was a time consuming, torturous ordeal.
In 1978 or 1979 I received a present. It was a HP-25, Hewlett Packard Scientific Programmable hand-held calculator.
The owner's handbook ended with:
"If you have worked completely through this handbook, you should have a very good knowledge of all the basic functions of the HP-25. But in fact you've only begun to see the power of the calculator. You'll come to understand it better and appreciate it more as you use the HP-25 daily to solve even the most complex mathematical expressions. At your fingertips you have a tool that was unavailable to Archimedes, Galileo, or Einstein. The only limits to the flexibility of the HP-25 are the limits of your own mind."
HP-25 was programmable with 49 lines of memory. I even wrote a matrix multiplication program so that I could finish my Power Systems Analysis homework early and escape to a pub to meet my friends for drinks.
I fell in love with programming using HP-25’s very limited programming language rather than a much more advanced Fortran IV. Holding a computer in my hands felt like being Superman, whereas Fortran’s punch cards and punch machines felt like the Stone Age.
I spent most of my career as a software engineer. I learned other programming languages: Assemblers, C, Pascal, Basic, Cobol, C++, C#, Pascal, Perl, Python, Javascript, Node JS and so on. I wrote programs, often beautiful programs.
Forty-five years fast forward, the art of programming as I learned, took pride in, fell in love and earned my living with can now be offloaded to Artificial Intelligence. I am no longer Superman. My powers are stolen like a piece of Krypton rock is held next to me.
If you are suffering from hearing loss, using hearing aids may help. Fixing hearing loss will improve your communication and mental health.
I am a long time sufferer of hearing loss on both ears due to a genetic condition. I have been using hearing aids for the past ten years. They allowed me to survive the final decade of my career as an engineer.
In this article I will share what I learned about managing hearing loss, how to maximise health benefits of using hearing aids and minimise cost of ownership.
Hearings aids market size was valued at around USD 9.68 billion in 2022. It is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately 5.7% from 2023 to 2030. This growth is driven by factors such as an ageing population, increased prevalence of hearing loss, advancements in hearing aid technology, and greater awareness and adoption of hearing aids. - ChatGPT -
At the time of this writing there are 5 types of hearing aids:
In Australia (probably applies to most countries) the market is made of the following tiers:
The person who suffers from hearing loss that has an adverse impact on their wellbeing.
A physician who provides diagnosis, medical and surgical care, and treatment of the ear, nose, throat, and neck. In most cases you might want to take advice from an ENT specialist to diagnose the root cause of your problem and in case an operation, such as stapedectomy can improve your hearing.
Audiologists are health care professionals who diagnose, manage, and treat hearing, balance, or ear problems. They work in the field of audiology, which is the science of hearing and balance. With hearing tests they determine the severity and type of hearing loss a patient has and develop a plan for treatment.
💡Always ask a copy of a Clinical Audiology Report that should include an audiogram. It is crucial to keep them among your personal health records that will show progress of hearing loss for a professional analysis. The audiogram is a chart that shows the results of a hearing test. It shows how well you hear sounds in terms of frequency (high-pitched sounds versus low-pitched sounds) and intensity, or loudness.
A clinic where the audiologist will take a medical history and ask you about your hearing in different situations. The audiologist will check your ears for wax, infections or any other abnormalities. Almost certainly they will run a hearing test and generate a Clinical Audiology Report. Based on the report they will advise how you can effectively manage your hearing problem.
The nature and severity of your hearing loss based on the Clinical Audiology Report allows the audiologist to advise the best hearing aid type that suits your case. For example “in the air” invisible hearing aids can only be suitable for slight or mild hearing loss.
A hearing clinic is a commercial entity. It is in their interest to sell you hearing aids and accessories through them. That said, there are advantages to work with them especially when they provide competitive prices.
💡 Purchasing hearing aids is half of the story. You need to maintain them well, via periodic clean-ups, fitting adjustments, fixing wire breakages and so on. Make sure the clinic is responsive and good at in those areas.
If you purchase the aids from the hearing clinic that runs the hearing test make sure they honour manufacturer’s warranty including free return policy following a trial period, they can fix breakages, and they can do custom fitting suitable for your ears’ anatomy.
💡 It is always good to shop around. In my experience most hearing clinics put enormous price markup. Check the wholesale operator HearingSavers website for the prices of exact hearing aids, this should be your reference price. HearingSavers will most certainly beat prices in majority of clinics' quotations.
The health clinic I have visited recently quoted $10,875/pair for top of the range Phonak hearing aids. I shopped around and found the same hearing aids on HearingSavers website for $5490/pair, half the price. You may ask a price match, but it is unlikely clinics can compete if the gap is in the order of thousands.
According to the information on their website HearingSavers work with many clinics throughout Australia that do periodic assessments, tests, fitting, follow up and maintenance.
Audiometrists are Hearing Care professionals who specialise in the non-medical assessment and management of communication difficulties caused by hearing loss.
The Audiometrist will clinically assess the hearing thresholds of the client to determine if a hearing aid fitting is indicated. At the fitting appointment the Audiometrist will give instruction to the client and any family or friends who may be involved, in the management of the hearing device/s, how to care for the instrument/s and how to gradually become accustomed to hearing and listening again.
The Audiometrist will develop a rehabilitation program to ensure the optimal benefit is gained from the hearing instruments that are prescribed. Hearing instruments are available in different makes, models and styles. The device/s prescribed will be determined with regard to the individual requirements of each client taking into consideration their needs.
💡Ask your hearing clinic whether they work with qualified Audiometrists. They are the technical experts that knows ins and outs of hearing aid instruments and how to best configure and fit them to your satisfaction. Be wary of clinics where audiologists are masquerading as audiometrists. In my experience not all audiologists are good fitters as well as audiometrists.
It's been one month since my retirement from work started.
So far:
As a baby-boomer I consider myself lucky as I lived a much interesting life than younger generations.
We grew up in a sparsely populated world where mysteries were abundant. We did not have material richness of today’s world but the world was richer in other ways.
The world of an adolescent boomer was more real. We had to acquire skills and physically navigate obstacles without the help of a smartphone or Internet.
We whistled to call our friends. We learned about human nature, building alliances and dealing with hostilities on streets. Everything happened under our watch, with our gaze fixed on the world, not on a dim white screen.
We learned to manually calculate the square root of a number. We had to read books, and we had to write in cursive using our hands.
When writing we had to be mindful as we often didn’t have a second chance for corrections. There was no clipboard, no cut, no copy and no paste. We wrote our home-works, passport applications and love letters in cursive, and often in one go.
We were super-humans without realising.
There is something meditative about dexterity. Your mind controls a mechanical pen or a pencil, you give birth to each letter one by one in a style unique to you, your words flow like a canoe on a river, splashing ripples. In the end your creation is unique and timeless, intimately attached to your mind.
I have recently written an essay on Photography in cursive. It was fulfilling to remember how special we are.
Many scientists postulate that wormholes are merely projections of a fourth spatial dimension, analogous to how a two-dimensional (2D) being could experience only part of a three-dimensional (3D) object.
This picture was shot inside the foyer of the Dymocks Building in Sydney downtown. It shows how 3D humans may have been projected on a 2D surface akin to how such experience may arise in wormholes. The converse is also true. If I happen to be in a 2D universe I may experience 3D objects devoid of one of their dimensions. Thus it is possible that I may be a 2D object.
I belong to a generation that worked briefly with wardrobe size computers that had no screens and could only be programmed with punch cards.
Yet, the old world I grew up in was bigger, wonderful and mysterious. Every place, every individual was a mystery, life was a mystery. It meant we had to dare, go out and discover the world physically. It meant not a morning passed without gleam and wonder.
Then came the fast food, the Internet, the global village, the social media and the world lost it all.
I cannot stand banality of social media. Once upon a time I was there, guilty as charged. Quitting turned out to be liberation. I was free again.
Memory declines by old age. You may be doing Crosswords, Sudoku, Wordle, DuoLingo or similar already. That is great.
A 20191 studyTrusted Source researched the effect of computerised cognitive training (in areas such as reasoning, memory, language, and attention) on the progression of mild cognitive impairment. Results of the study showed that the training increased the brain’s grey matter volume and may help preserve general cognition2.
I am learning Italian on Duolingo, a language learning app. It includes visual and audial sensory input that flex your memory. It combines fun and adjustable dose of stress that is necessary for learning.
I am now on my 39th consecutive day; I wake up, drink a glass of water, put my headphones on and study Italian with Duolingo for one hour.
It is a great way to start your day. I feel exhilarated after that.
It is too early to claim benefits, but it is fun. And it is not just potential benefits but other prospects interest me. I may join Italian talking groups one day, or start reading or listening to Italian radio. I don’t think I can ever talk in Italian fluently unless I move to Italy. But that is not my goal.
💡Set yourself realistic goals
Learning a new language is my second most important habit after waking up early.
1: Cognitive Health and Older Adults
2: Best Brain Stimulating Games for Dementia and Why They Work
If there is one smart habit among must have habits what would that be?
Wake up early and always at the same time seven days a week.
In retirement, time and energy are your scarcest commodities. Waking up early has a double advantage. Your energy level is at its maximum and you gain useful day time.
Even if you break other habits don’t break this one. Waking up early is your most valuable tool against procrastination.
💡 Set your alarm clock to a sensible time for 7 days a week, not later than 8 am.
One of the most pressing questions for new retirees is “what will I do?”
The first reaction will most likely be “I will do something,” which instantly becomes a pathetic lie. You cannot possibly do anything unless you know what that thing is.
On average twenty percent of a white collar worker’s life is spent in an office even if we exclude holidays and sick leaves. Considering our life long pursuit of earning bread and butter, office workers are no stranger to habits; we get up early in the morning, go through the morning chores, jump on a commute, stereotypically grab a coffee, go to the office, come back home exhausted every single work day. Our whole life is structured around work, so is our daily habits.
Suddenly we retire. The first morning comes. We wake up early with our genetically engineered bio-clock for a while. But then gradually for most of us the morning routine starts to slip. Why not we have a late breakfast, enjoy the freedom we deserve a little. Should we have pancakes or omelette?
How about we skip shaving and try out a short stubble beard just like that actor your wife admired in a Scandinavian crime series?
Before long, we are in a couch, legs extended, gazing at social media. Scrolling an endless stream of hardly meaningful messages; we ‘like,’ we scroll, we watch a cat video, we chuckle a little, we read news, we get upset, and so on. This takes at least an hour. In our small world we seem to be content. What else would you want anyway? Life is sweat.
The remaining day is spent with mundane activities, daily walk, household chores, supermarket shopping, more household chores and if we are lucky we go somewhere nice, have a coffee or light lunch. On a better day we might go to the art gallery, or the museum we always want to visit, or even better if weather permits we go to the beach; while thinking about skin cancer, we obsessively sun screen our shoulders, neck and face, we struggle getting rid of the sand stuck on our hands, we swim a little while thinking about sharks, we wash our feet obsessively using a public tap, we get annoyed by the sand we know we can never get rid of entirely, which by the way is going to ruin the car’s interiors.
Similarly the evening routine starts to slip too. Let’s binge watch that crime drama, let’s have a little apperatif, maybe with a piece of chocolate, let’s watch how people are murdered sadistically while shivering a little, and always making sure to pause and remind ourselves the cozy little room we are in right now is inaccessible to manics and we must take pleasure from other peoples’ miseries, because we are now retired and hell yeah we deserve it.
A month or two pass. We realise we are on the verge to become a potato with bumps around the belly resting on a worn off coach. Something is a miss, but what?
💡Start with developing new habits.
Welcome to Naked Retiree blog.
This blog has nothing to do with me stripping my clothes like the infamous NYC resident Naked Cowboy, although I don't have anything against nakedness. I know you will remember a name with "naked”, there you have the reason.
I have quite a few blogs. Soon I'll be a retiree and I thought why not creating a new blog documenting my retirement.
As retirees we don't have to prove anything to anyone, other than the taxman. And that is a great liberation. All those promotion bullshit are left behind. In fact I ask you not to share this blog with anyone. You are among a selected few who received a special invitation via WhatsApp or Messages. If you are not interested to receive new post notifications, let me know via the method I contacted you and I will remove you from my list.
I want to make Naked Retiree relaxed, funny, and informative at the same time. Retirement can be a challenge for those of you who have trouble shaping it. I’ll share what worked and what not for me, hoping to inspire you.
There is no single blueprint for retirement that will work the same for everyone. We are all different. You don’t need to mimic my lifestyle, you need to find your own way.
Lastly I won't allow comments here. It is not a discussion forum. However you’re welcome to provide feedback through our contact medium, WhatsApp or Messages where I share the blog link.
See you in a moment guys!
