Observation

Hateful behaviour provides lessons in how not to be.

Journal 2020-08-06

I think I will set-up my own green screen film studio and have some fun making videos. I want to shoot dramatic monologues and music performances - and also maybe some presentations if I’m feeling boring.

Journal 2020-07-30

Wasn’t Shakespeare amazing. It would be so interesting to find out how his genius developed - what he saw and experienced in his life that helped him write such beautiful words and comprehend so deeply the human condition in all its different aspects. I can think of other notable geniuses in history - Mozart in music, Newton in science etc. - but Shakespeare is a sort of mythical other, shrouded in mystery, whose breadth of insight has the greatest impact on me.

Journal 2020-07-19

I think I’ve found a new thing. I’m really enjoying putting a podcast together on drama - and am working out how best to film some of the recordings. It will include some of my music as well.

Journal 2020-07-12

I’m interested in performing great monologues from literature - it seems easy to upload audio as a podcast and also filmed versions for a YouTube channel.

I’ve been looking for a podcast where I can listen to dramatic performances of literature, but am finding mostly dry monotone readings of poetry. Monologues on YouTube seem to be mostly non-realistic anger and angst.

Journal 2020-07-07

I uploaded Alive today. The song took a while to finish, I needed to be in the mood.

Lots of other unfinished songs to pick up and play with, but they aren’t calling me at the moment. For another time…

Journal 2020-07-06

There is a greater chance of releasing the magic if not consumed by self-aggrandisement or conforming to other people’s expectations, especially if the current norms are harmful and wrong. Success in transcendent goals is not the same as success in negotiating positions of status in the current society, which of course will change with the relentless passage of time. It just so happens, however, that those people who were motivated mainly by intrinsic value, rather than their individual psychological desires, produced the best long-lasting examples of beauty and creative human potential.

Journal 2020-07-05

Reading about Dostoevsky. There is certainly a trend in history that the most interesting thinkers and artists tended to be outsiders for defining periods; and sometimes the untamed spark that made them great was dampened when invited in from the wilderness. Dostoevsky’s spark seemed to ignite after the more eventful stages of his life - in particular after a death sentence for sedition was commuted at the last minute to hard labour in a Siberian gulag, writing four classic novels after this period.

Journal 2020-07-04

The internet and smartphones have been transformative for me.

I have instant access to knowledge in my pocket. At any time I can find brilliance and beauty at my fingertips. I can learn from top minds and see the most incredible examples of what humans can do.

If I am unfamiliar with a word, I look up its definition; if I don’t understand a reference, I read about it from credible sources. When I want to learn anything, all the instructions and guidance are there.

When I need to be inspired, I can find it there.

Journal 2020-07-03

In computer programming, effort goes into creating reusable building blocks of code that can be implemented in multiple transferable processes. Much like the exponential growth of knowledge, the components can be included as foundations in larger and larger frameworks.

The Colosseum

The Romans viewed the Colosseum as the zenith of civilisation, representing the natural order playing out, in tribute to the glory of the Gods. In the arena was unadulterated murder and torture for the entertainment of the baying crowds.

People two thousand years ago are us, just brought up differently with different beliefs and living under different conditions.

Humanity has now mostly progressed to recognise the depraved evils that were socially accepted in previous times - yet a person of the time would have gone along with the accepted behaviour, assuming it was right because everyone else said it was right. They were wrong.

Unless you think we are currently at the zenith of civilisation, what are the great injustices of our time that are socially conditioned and accepted as normal justifiable behaviour?

Journal 2020-07-02

If humans are around for billions of years, then we are currently the early originals.

Maybe we are at the stage where we are just starting to recognise some shapes.

Timeline

200,000 years ago, anatomically modern humans in the world.

5,500 years ago, the written word begins.

475 years ago, the Scientific Revolution.

250 years ago, the Industrial Revolution.

150 years ago, the Technological Revolution.

70 years ago, digital electronic computers.

29 years ago, the Internet.

13 years ago, smartphones & social media.

Another big changer due (or has already happened).

What will be the timeline in 1 billion years? The future could be completely incomprehensible from where we are now.

Journal 2020-07-01

I couldn’t do as many lifting reps with less food - there may be a psychological factor involved, as this was what I had expected. Strength athletes tend to eat at regular short intervals, and deliberately overeat during the course of a day, to make sure that they have the optimum amount of calories and nutrients to build muscle - they later undertake a cutting phase to lose the fat.

Runners need to be sparrow-like, as light as possible to optimise the power-to-weight ratio. Carrying excess muscle around is not optimal.

I want to be both agile and strong, rather than ideally adapted for one function.

Journal 2020-06-30

Human

Opportunity: Compounded improvements in the quality of life.

Threat: A downward spiral into oblivion.

Practical solution: Adopting a framework of good habits.

Goal: Aliveness.

Journal 2020-06-29

I am now fasting for 18 hours a day, eating a balanced meal at each end of a six hour window - called “intermittent fasting”.

My Phone

My phone pleads:

“Look at me,

I can show you anything,

JUST LOOK AT ME!”

Summon with caution, a mischievous little genie

wants feeding by my stare;

To bestow wonders or destroy the world,

it doesn’t care.

Journal 2020-06-25

Having a proper look around Twitter.

It’s a good way to get updates and information on interesting topics.

The massive downside is the angry political gunge seeping through it. I generally move on when people start writing in terms like “us and them” or left and right, this tribe or that tribe. Twitter seems to inflame that partisan ugly polarisation.

The gaming aspects of Twitter, such as gaining likes and follows, encourages people (irrespective of political compass) to clamour for attention, often leading to the normalisation of all sorts of distorting and destructive behaviour.

But to be honest, it is morbidly fascinating to look at all the crazy. It’s like picking a scab though, no good for me at all.

Journal 2020-06-23

5 creative outlets for me:

1. Playing music - vocals, instrumentals, producing;
2. Performing - singing, acting, public speaking;
3. Writing - music, lyrics, poetry, drama, prose;
4. Visual art and design;
5. Computer programming.

I’m not interested in comparing levels of ability to others, that’s not the point.

The more these areas cross-over the better.

The more I enjoy doing them, the better.

TSS Markets

Over the past year I have experimented with three different methods of trading in the currency markets: computer automated algorithmic trading, human manual trading, and semi-automated algorithmic trading.

Purely automated trading - using pattern recognition and data mining - has proven to be very unsuccessful, which is is to be expected, as it is highly unlikely that there exists a magic formula for technical analysis that can be applied at all times. If such a thing existed, the designer of the magic money box would quickly become the richest person in history, given the trillions of dollars that pass through the financial markets every day. Successful automated algorithms in the markets compete on speed of response to price imperfections, and to variances between market expectations and economic data announcements.

Manual trading has had variable returns, yielding a slight net gain, but this is no guarantee of future performance due to the lack of a reusable fully codified strategy.

The most successful method is the hybrid combination of a human and a machine working together in real-time, which has performed very well over the testing time period. The human (me) innovates and modifies ideas from large volumes of data, processed by the algorithm, as directed by me. The semi-automated algorithm then dispassionately executes the trading plan in the lifespan of the strategy, instantly and precisely processing every market tick, every moment of every day.