Thinking Out Loud

Thinking Out Loud is a recurring post in which I present a selection of thoughts and ideas that have crossed my mind recently. As always, some of these could be developed into blog posts of their own but that really isn’t the point. Thinking Out Loud is a vehicle for brief, rhetorical musing rather than log form analysis. I just put a virtual pen to paper and get some of my thoughts written down for your consideration. As always, please feel free to leave a comment.

The Value of Money

When people think about large sums of money, especially in relation to their own salary and any future expectations of wealth, the phrase “a million pounds” (feel free to substitute that with your own currency of choice) will often be bandied about. Culturally it quickly conveys the concept of a large sum of money and as such, something that would transform your life. Although I am not in any way averse to the idea of winning “a million pounds” on the lottery or by some other means, I’m afraid it is no longer the gateway to wealth that it used to be. In fact a so-called cool million may not even last you a lifetime. UK property prices are grossly over inflated, so you could easily blow 50 to 75% of your money just buying a  new house. Perhaps we now need to think in tens of millions instead of just a million with regard to life changing wealth.

Projects

The New Year is always a good idea for projects. The weather is often poor and the time of the year is generally quite dull. Hence it’s a useful period to channel all that positive energy (or hubristic bullshit if you prefer) into a new project. I was going to try and write a blog post everyday but that hasn’t quite gone to plan due to “life ™”. So rather than worry about it, I just write as and when I can. The main source of distraction has been a rather ill conceived idea to dust off my YouTube channel. When I first decided to do a podcast back in 2010, I effectively taught myself how to record and edit audio. I became adequately skilled in the process and could turn around a well edited, 60 minute podcast in about 6 to 8 hours. So I recently thought I could do the same again, with regard to editing video.

As my aims are straightforward, IE record some video game footage and then add a narration to it in post production, I decided to go with some basic video editing software. So I decided on Corel VideoStudio 2023 and it does exactly what I need, in an intuitive manner. The only drawback in posting videos to YouTube is the time investment required. It takes a fair amount of time to record, edit and then upload a video to one’s channel. If you then want people to actually see it, then there’s further work to do with regard to promoting it. If this is something I decide to do more often, I can see videos being added on a purely monthly basis. In some respects this project is merely an intellectual exercise, designed to see whether I can do what so many other people do. Personally I prefer podcasts as a medium and still have aspirations to resurrect my former show.

“Work you JAMF”

Learning When Older

According to Google, it becomes harder to learn when older, for the following reasons. “Learning can become harder as you get older primarily because of natural changes in the brain, including decreased neural plasticity, reduced blood flow to certain regions, and a decline in the efficiency of communication between neurons, which can lead to slower processing speeds and difficulty forming new memories, especially for complex information; this is further compounded by potential lifestyle factors like less dedicated learning time and increased distractions as people age”. I’m not going to argue with this explanation but I will add that another factor that makes things difficult is continuous interruptions. Why is it that people find a pressing need to appraise me of all the tedious irrelevancies of their lives when I’m trying to concentrate? 

Sorting Your Life Out

When I say “sorting your life out” I don’t mean having a spiritual epiphany or anything philosophical. I just mean doing some rather straightforward administrative tasks that have a deferred benefit. I recently had a new will written which means that as and when I die, Mrs P doesn’t have to endure excessive legal complexities when administering my estate. I also took steps to ensure that I have paid sufficient National Insurance Contributions towards my UK state pension. I am not eligible for this until I’m 67 (in a decade’s time) but there are some major rule changes coming on 5th April this year and I didn’t want to be caught out at a later date. There’s an insidious culture in the UK of “putting off to tomorrow what you can do today” but it’s so difficult to overcome. I guess hitting 57 last December made it clear that I have more time behind me than I do ahead.

TV Quiz Shows

This is actually a picture from the fictional quiz show “Numberwang”

I have watched a couple of daytime UK TV quiz shows recently and was perturbed by the contestants’ low levels of general knowledge. Especially as some had professional jobs. I suspect that the internet is to blame, along with an educational system that is designed so people can pass exams but no more. There is no longer a pressing requirement to retain data anymore, as it can just be “Googled”. People tend not to know anything outside of their career, or see the merit in just knowing stuff. The concept of the “well read” person also seems to be in decline. Which begs the question, who will be tomorrow's renaissance men raconteurs?