Simo East

Truth seeker.

[Simo East @SimoEast]

@FuelAustralia Thanks for the frequent updates. 😊
Any thoughts on whether marine fuel shortages are a concern?
https://t.co/F1mMdCC9N3

[Marhelm @MarhelmData]

Mercuria head of freight says 10% of global ships could be forced to stop next month due to fuel shortages

[Simo East @SimoEast]

AI is producing some pretty impressive stuff in some areas, but I still can't get it to do menial tasks like convert a PDF into clean markdown text. It fails over and over again, despite telling me it's checked itself carefully.🤷‍♂️

[Reads with Ravi @readswithravi]

You can’t skip the messy part. The messy part is where you grow.

[Simo East @SimoEast]

@soulver I’ve been using v2 for years on iPhone and only just stumbled across v3 today accidentally. How come there’s nothing in the v2 app to notify users of a newer version?

[FuelAustralia.org @FuelAustralia]

We're sitting at a precarious moment.

Iran has threatened to widen the fight to Bab al-Mandab, the Red Sea chokepoint. Historically, a large proportion of Australia's fuel has come through a single chokepoint, the Strait of Hormuz. This would put a second in the firing line.

This is exactly why I've spent time rebuilding my tanker tracking from the ground up - still using open sources only - so we can all see what's on the way.

It now follows individual voyages rather than one-off snapshots, and I've added far more port monitoring around the world. This allows me to pick up more ships, earlier in their voyage - at load ports and transit hubs overseas - then follow them the whole way through to where they berth in Australia.

You can see it live - every AU-bound voyage: https://t.co/m1jsdmtp3s

And if this deteriorates further, there's a new layer coming that matters most in exactly that scenario. Not ready to show it yet. Soon.

[Blake Burge @blakeaburge]

The older I get, the more I realize that optimism is a competitive advantage. Not blind positivity. The belief that problems can be solved. That things can improve. That your actions matter. People who believe a better future is possible are the ones who create it.

[Simo East @SimoEast]

@AnacondaStores Why are you making me jump through hoops just to browse your website? Frustrating user experience.

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

Did you know?

Australia is on the move fast enough to throw off GPS system.

Most people think of continents as fixed in place. But Australia is moving northward at a pace of 2.7 inches (7 centimeters) per year – faster than any other landmass on Earth.

[Simo East @SimoEast]

@Batman2242 @grok Is this true or misleading? What’s your take?

[Simo East @SimoEast]

RESIST the urge to teach anything to anyone unless you’re asked.

[Anish Moonka @anishmoonka]

When someone teaches you something you didn't ask to learn, your brain reacts like it's in physical pain. UCLA scientists watched it happen on brain scans in 2003. The same wiring that fires when you stub your toe also fires when someone treats you like you need fixing.

Naomi Eisenberger and Matthew Lieberman ran the study and published it in Science. The brain region is the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, which is just the fancy name for your main pain alarm. It doesn't care whether the threat is a hot stove or a friend telling you how to live.

A neuroscientist named David Rock built a framework around this in 2008. Five things make the brain feel safe in social moments: status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness. Take away any of those and the alarm fires. Rock wrote that one of the easiest ways to dent someone's status is to give them advice they didn't ask for. Even hinting that they're doing something wrong is enough.

When people are told what to do, they often do the opposite, even when the advice was good. The psychologist Jack Brehm noticed this in 1966, and sixty years of follow-up have confirmed it. The brain is trying to keep your life feeling like your own.

Close friends cut each other off with unsolicited advice in about 70% of supportive conversations, often before the friend has even finished explaining the problem. That number comes from a 2016 study by Bo Feng and Eran Magen in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. The closer the friendship, the worse it gets. And the advice tends to make them more stressed, more depressed, and more lonely, not less.

Giving advice gives the giver a sense of power, even when nobody asked for it. Michael Schaerer and his co-authors, working across Harvard, Duke, INSEAD, USC, and Singapore Management, published this in 2018 after four experiments with about 700 people. People who chase power volunteer advice more often than others. Whether the student actually improves is a side effect, if it happens at all.

So when you feel the urge to teach somebody who never asked, that urge is mostly about you. You walk away feeling a little more powerful. They walk away feeling like they were just told they can't run their own life. Most uninvited teaching is one person's ego dressed up as kindness.

[Matt Van Swol @mattvanswol]

It is nearly an impossible task to convey just how amazing kids are to someone who doesn’t have any.

The best way I can describe it is this:

You spend your whole life thinking you understand love.

Then one night, you’ll find yourself standing in a room at 2 a.m., just watching your newborn baby breathe, just to make sure they are still alive.

And you realize in that moment that you would burn the entire world to the ground for the slow rise and fall of that tiny chest.

You become braver and absolutely terrified at the same time.

You start looking for exits in restaurants and worrying about that weird stranger in the parking lot.

You discover a capacity for anger and violence you never knew lived in you until you think you might need it because someone might hurt your kid.

The first time you see your kid, the entire world changes.

You realize you are meant to live for them… not for you.

And it feels good. It feels right.

Like a key to a door you have always been looking at but could never open.

And one ordinary afternoon probably while you’re folding socks or something dumb, it will hit you…

This is how your parents loved you.

This is what she felt watching you sleep.
This is what your dad felt every time he watched you walk out the door.

And you had no idea.

You spent your entire childhood with no idea.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

It’s so beautiful, words fail to describe it.

It’s just right, it was always meant to be this way. ❤️

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

Photographer Phil Thurston shot a wave.

Slowed it down until those few seconds became 40.

Turns out the ocean is doing something extraordinary every single moment.

We're just moving too fast to notice.

[Brian Roemmele @BrianRoemmele]

“Here’s the secret, you don’t have to play…”

[James Clear @JamesClear]

The best view of the game is probably from the stands. But that's not where the action is. And so you have to decide, do you want a nice view or do you want to be in the thick of it and playing the game?

[James Clear @JamesClear]

In the gym, if you experience no stimulus your muscles won't grow. If you step under 10,000 pounds your body will break.

Life is similar.

Too much challenge makes life hard, but so does too little.

[Simo East @SimoEast]

Fed Budget night is so discouraging.

1. Get taxed more
2. Government spends even more than it brings in
3. Country goes into increasing debt
4. Rinse and repeat 😒

Well at least we’re not getting taxed on unrealised gains. Yet. 🤪

[Rebekah Barnett @dystopian_DU]

‘Fuel relief’ cash payments of $100 for West Australians.

The catch?

You need to sign up for digital ID to get it.

[Sahil Bloom @SahilBloom]

A few "boring" things I love:

- Going to bed early
- Waking up early
- Eating simple foods
- Saving money
- Moving my body
- Walking in silence
- Reading old books
- Avoiding drama

Boring is seriously underrated.

[Alex & Books 📚 @AlexAndBooks_]

One of the best feelings from reading is when you find a sentence so good that you have to close the book and stare at the wall for a minute.

[James Clear @JamesClear]

You can take things seriously without taking them personally.

Our tendency is to turn any criticism or complaint into a personal attack. We reply to it, defend against it, build a counter-argument, lose sleep over it.

You don't have to eat everything that is served to you. You can respond to criticism without digesting criticism. Take what's useful, do your best to improve, and leave the rest.