1000

On the weekend I uploaded my 1000th video to Youtube

Nearly 20 years ago my first video showed mountain-biking outside Wagga with a track I made in Cubase.

Yesterday it was a piece on tenor guitar responding to a poem.

 

It's remarkable to consider how my experience of Youtube has changed in 20 years, given I wrote about that encounter and now endure the indignity of watching advertising to view my own work.

Anyway, another number just now: 

2222

Total for posts on this blog and I'm on the way to the most in almost a decade.

Giving a glance to arts in regional NSW

Today is the "national giving day to arts", according to Creative Australia

One of the things that stands out is that funding for the arts in this country is changing, such as the promotion of this official donation website and the appearance within it of a peak organisation for regional arts in my state that used to be funded by government.

Regional Arts NSW has a role uniting the arts boards that help communities make sense of the complex and ever-changing environment for creative industries, yet their funding was withdrawn by the state government who have since also withdrawn funding for one of those regional arts boards.

So it's clear the network that existed for regional artists is broken and there doesn't seem to be any discussion in the small amount of media covering the arts to know what is likely to replace it.

Brand inconsistencies

One of the fundamental aspects to building a brand is the opportunity to convince consumers to pay more or buy more often

Brand loyalty is a relationship where the consumer sees value over time, even if that means something as simple as saving their mental bandwidth from having to research other options.

However, some brands are fractured through diverse market offerings, which might explain my disappointment with the current Reese's ice-cream.

Now chocolate brands reinterpreted as ice-confections is an area that fascinates me, as there's a weird thing where their primary appeal behaves differently.

Chocolate is one experience at room temperature that differs markedly when it is cold, although that also serves as a way to disguise bad quality.

The Reese's ice-creams have been a very mixed bag in their various iterations, but there are some key components that can be successful and it has been my greatest pleasure during previous summers.

Currently the brand is being sold in the "sandwich" form, which is probably my least-liked style because this tries to make a virtue of eating a soggy biscuit.

The new Reese's version lacks caramel and I'm not convinced there is any peanut in there either, although there was a lump that I couldn't identify.

 

Then I wondered -- are they having a laugh?

My conclusion is that brand loyalty has not delivered a product that rewards my consumption and I advise caution when approaching this confection.

There's no caramel and no chocolate and probably not enough peanut to trigger an allergy (but please don't test this if you have a reaction to those, in fact just don't buy this icecream)!

App lied learning

Nothing much holds my youngest back

Eden was already reading when he became one of the youngest kids in his year at school.

Now that he's starting his final year of high school, it means he's 16 years old while some of his cohort are already legally adults.

I used to worry about access to alcohol, given how enticing it can be while a child's brain is still growing.

However, a story Eden shared the other day illustrates that many parents have other concerns.

A group of kids were driving home from Griffith when there was a wave of phone calls across the back seat.

An app on the kids' phones had alerted parents the car was travelling over the speed limit.

My son described how each conversation concluded with parents telling their kids that they wouldn't be driven in that car again.

It surprises me that helicopter-parenting is now akin to a drone swooping in on a child from an app on their digital device.

While I am concerned that my son was driving in a speeding car by a relatively inexperienced driver, my response is a sense that privacy has been intruded on.

I mean, my son will be an adult in less than two years, there are many lessons he will need to learn to promote his own safety before then.

My mind replays the many ways I snuck out of home or planned crimes as a child, yet ultimately I had to take steps to be an adult that involved responsibility for my actions.

I wonder whether kids will be losing an opportunity to develop a skill, a bit like how satellite navigation has impacted on the abilities of people to develop geo-spatial awareness.

How do kids learn to grow up in this new panopticon?

Grant-writing workshop

 

Shared tips to apply for the Country Art Support Program

Bad day at work?

 

School days

Recently I read about an experiment with adjusting the time high school starts

Looks like the results needed more schools to trial this idea before drawing too many conclusions, see https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6626292/

However, as a parent and former teenager, I know the struggle to get to school on time.

Currently it frustrates me that my son needs assistance when I'm at my mental peak for the day, but I'm probably just looking at the internet anyway. 

This week I was observing that his older brother got himself to school, then his sister started asking for lifts when there was an early start. 

Now he, as the youngest, is now asking for a lift every day and is late more often than not.

As a firstborn I can't think of many occasions when I got a lift to high school and I've seen stories that (in the US admittedly) a kid making their own way to school is reason to question their welfare.

So I'm grateful that he's only got one more year to go before finishing high school (although I might be working in schools myself by that time).