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 Importance of Art
Art is a big subject, so I shall keep this brief. Art has a massive impact on shaping our personalities, whether we think it does or not. Consider for a moment, any online service that requires you to write a profile about yourself. Something that is designed to provide a summary of your personality, abilities and your likes and dislikes. IE Facebook, a dating app or even your online resume. Frequently, these profiles will require us to define ourselves by what we read, watch and listen to. Yes, other information is included in such profiles but directly or indirectly, we are asked about our artistic preferences. Possibly we do not consider such a line of questioning to be about art but essentially it is. So we dutifully state which art we cleave to and then look for reciprocal taste in others. Does this not prove that art is important?
Are You Wealthy?
HSBC bank recently conducted a survey in the UK about people’s perception of wealth. It is a very interesting analysis with some stand out facts. The biggest being a major regional disparity between the South and the North of the UK, regarding how much you need to earn a year to be considered wealthy. Londoners cited £290,000 as an annual salary, where in the North East it was £80,000. House prices have a lot to do with this. There were also some interesting social markers that some deemed to imply wealth. Having investments, being able to regularly travel and retirement were mentioned by about half of people surveyed. There were some curious additional examples, such as having an island in your kitchen or having a cleaner, gardener or any help with domestic chores. There was also a strong trend to equate wealth with mental well being. Money worries are seen as a key source of stress.
Doing Things Spontaneously
Spontaneity covers a lot of things, so allow me to be specific with regard to the point I’m making. Consider the following thought experiment. You decide on a whim to visit a place of interest. You also consider going to a restaurant afterwards and enjoying a leisurely meal and a few drinks. However, when you arrive at the place of interest you find that it is totally rammed. You can’t find anywhere to park, or the venue limits the number of people entering. You’re advised that you should have checked the website in advance and booked tickets for a designated time slot. You then go to your restaurant of choice, only to find that it is similarly full. Disappointed, you head home only to run into major traffic delays that you were totally unaware of.
This is something that has happened to me and Mrs P on several occasions. She favours doing things spontaneously. Sadly, the world is becoming increasingly averse to such a philosophy. Museums, galleries and places of historical interest are more often than not, subject to a booking regime. Reservations for dining out are also commonplace nowadays. It simply comes down to the number of people pursuing leisure activities, especially with a growing retired population in the UK. You’ll encounter the same problem when entertaining children during half-term. Personally, I like the piece of mind that planning a day out brings but Mrs P hates the fact you can’t always do things on a whim.
Password Managers
I wrote four months ago about replacing my existing password manager, after years of using LastPass. At the time I was going to move to Bitwarden. However, I ended up creating a free account with Proton Pass, developed by the Swiss software company Proton AG. Proton Pass can store login credentials, email aliases, credit card data, passkeys, 2FA secret keys, and notes in virtual vaults that are encrypted using 256-bit AES-GCM. The company seems to have a strong customer service ethic and the free version of the software is not lacking in functionality.
Car CD Players
Mrs P is the designated driver in our household as I don’t drive. Mrs P bought a new car in 2020. A Skoda Scala. It did not come with a CD player as the car industry now expects drivers to connect a streaming device via Bluetooth, to the vehicle’s “infotainment system”. Mrs P doesn’t especially care for technology. Nor does she have a phone contract with an adequate data allowance or indeed a spotify account. She does like CDs. So I bought a portable CD player with Bluetooth. Sadly it refused to connect to her Skoda, which upon further research, is a common issue. So it was returned to Amazon and the quest for a tech friendly solution goes on. In the meantime she has found a country radio station which has proven adequate.
