The 2018 NBA Playoffs Have Been Pretty Good Thus Far

If you followed the 2017 NBA Playoffs, you’d know what I mean: it was rightfully assumed that both the Warriors and Cavs would meet again in the NBA Finals, with the Warriors unsurprisingly giving the Cavs the sweep. That was truly a bore.

This year, there’s a lot more drama and storylines, which is good for the sport.  The only sweep thus far was an unsuspected one (the Pelicans beating the Trailblazers), and the Jazz can make another less surprising "upset" too. The Warriors didn’t sweep the Spurs (who are in such unprecedented locker room drama with Kahwi Leonard bailing out in my view). The Cavs with LeBron James are downright struggling. The Rockets have yet to prove that they’re the real deal. Derrick Rose has proven that he’s still got it somewhat. The rest are all in slugfests.

That’s good. And thanks to YouTube, you can watch all of the good stuff in condensed time; a two hour TV broadcast cut to just 10 minutes that you can watch while doing stuff. 

I don't know who to support this year, but I'm betting on a Rockets vs Cavs finals.

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My First Successful Hardware Repair of An Apple Device

My Apple AirPort Extreme + Time Capsule Wi-Fi Base Station started giving overheating warnings the other day (forgot to take screenshots of the AirPort Utility app indicating the overheating warnings), and after some searching on iFixit and another search for tools, I tried to fix the problem (with an opportunity to get the kids away from the screens).

The Hotak 32 Piece Mobile Phone Repair Tools Set (minus the extension bar, missing)

The Torx 8 and 10 driver heads, along with the prying bars and extension bars were essential

True enough, the problem was that the fan has become stuck, and I proceeded to add some lubricating oil to the fan mechanism. I also noted a huge amount of dust near the vents and overall insides. Other than nicking the base here and there from prying open the casing I managed to fix it (along with the LED indicator which probably didn’t work because of the dust inside). Hopefully it’ll add a few more years to a device that has been reliable enough for at least the past maybe 6 years I guess, making it a reliable simple automatic backup option for my family’s laptops and an archiver of the contents of my late father’s black plastic MacBook (which in general still works). 

If you own a fanned electronic device, knowing how to open and fix dust and air-fow related issues is probably a good skill to have to add years to a device from preventing overheating issues.

And true to their reputation, Apple devices are truly difficult to repair. I had to dismantle almost the whole device to gain access to the fan.

How a National Culture of Academic Over-Competition Destroys Their Youth

This is such a sad story:

“When I asked a class if they were happy in this environment, one girl hesitantly raised her hand to tell me that she would only be happy if her mother was gone because all her mother knew was how to nag about her academic performance.

...

Herded to various educational outlets and programs by parents, the average South Korean student works up to 13 hours a day, while the average high school student sleeps only 5.5 hours a night to ensure there is sufficient time for studying.

... 

Many young South Koreans suffer physical symptoms of academic stress, like my brother did. In a typical case, one friend reported losing clumps of hair as she focused on her studies in high school; her hair regrew only when she entered college.

Students are also inclined to see academic performance as their only source of validation and self-worth. Among young South Koreans who confessed to feeling suicidal in 2010, an alarming 53 percent identified inadequate academic performance as the main reason for such thoughts.

...

But above all, the conviction that academic success is paramount in life needs to be set aside completely. South Korea may have become an enviable economic superpower, but it has neglected the happiness of its people.”

That is just child abuse. The American education system may be swung a bit much towards sports/creativity/“emotional development” at the expense of academic development, but swinging to the other side is just as harmful.

But with being rich being a significant factor to achieving any social mobility in the current era of ever increasing economic iequality, the drive to keep pushing to be on top will always be there. But it seems that the Americans are doing better than Asians in coping with the pressures (maybe because there's an impression that the American millennials are completely oblivious to the high stakes nature of the modern workplace while kids are given certificates just for participating in something without proper achievement).

I think that we have a bit of both extremes among our own people, but it’s certainly more in the middle. Hence we produce people who can’t really talk confidently yet can’t memorize word by word their textbook and still suck in sports (except in online keyboard warrior arguments).