It takes a little time..

I've made a graph.

(click to enlarge)

It illustrates how we need time to familiarise ourselves with something before we can begin to truly enjoy it. This applies to food, music, video games ..all sorts; and it was inspired by a conversation (slash argument) I had with my friend.

My friend plays music in a band. A folky-style band - nothing too heavy. And they have a gig coming up where they have to play three separate sets, of half an hour each. The venue isn't a pub or club, but a village fete type thing. So my friend and his little troupe aren't the main attraction, they're just one of a few local acts providing backing music as the visitors wander the various stalls and attractions.

Anyway, as they have ninety minutes to fill they're learning ninety minutes of material. A bit of a steep task - especially for such a little event. I said they should just play the same set three times. Maybe adding the odd song here or there if they want. However, my friend insisted that that would annoy people.

Obviously, I think he's wrong 😈

I actually think getting the chance to play the same set three times offers a huge opportunity they're foolish to miss out on.

First of all, the people there during the second or third set aren't necessarily going to be the same people that are there for the first. How long are these people spending there? So it's unlikely many people will hear all three sets anyhow.

Secondly, people won't even be paying attention to the music. They'll be too busy looking at the bric-a-brac and other curiosities. My friend will be lucky if he even gets noticed. (That sounds a bit harsh, lol. I don't mean it to sound that way.)

Thirdly - and this is where the opportunity arises - by having people hear a song more than once there's much more potential that it'll get stuck in their heads.

During the first set people won't consciously notice the background music, but during the second - when the songs are that little bit more familiar - suddenly they might. That's when the humming or singing along can occur. Then they notice. Then it's, "What's this?", "Who are these guys?"

You're essentially fast-tracking people through two or three gigs worth of exposure in a single day. The perfect advertisement opportunity. Three ads for the price of one.

My Friend Still Wasn't Buying It

He insisted that it doesn't work like that. More to point, he claims that he knows instantly whether he likes a song or not on the very first time of hearing it, and that other people have this instant awareness too. I think he's overestimating his powers of judgement and perception though, and underestimating how easily the brain gets tricked.

I've discussed this before on here. I think with new music it takes a few goes to get acclimatised. A good example is when you buy a new album.

You maybe buy a band's album because you like the single from it. When you start listening to the album the single itself is a joy to hear - you're tempted to just put it on repeat. However, the other album tracks are harder going. You're just not feeling them the same way. But then it happens. After a few listens some of the album tracks begin to stand out. (Assuming it's actually a decent album that is.) Then you start enjoying those tracks as much as the single. In fact, one of those other tracks could well be a future single that's yet to be released. It didn't sound like a single the very first time you put the album on, but now, all of a sudden, it does.

You're rewarded for that bit of effort and perseverance.

With the first single you didn't need to make that effort. As you'd already subconsciously heard it in the background on the radio, or in other places, multiple times before. Long before you started humming it and wanting to buy it.

So there's that little period of unfamiliarity, where it isn't enjoyable. Once you get past that the real enjoyment begins. Then, after a while, it gets overfamiliar - that's when boredom sets in. Hence the tail end of the graph.

People often complain that they're bored and that they want new music (or new food, or whatever else). But they're usually not willing to put the effort in to overcome the unfamiliarity of new things. They hear something for five seconds and say, "No, don't like it!" 😠

And the more new or unfamiliar something is the more this is the case.

For instance, say someone likes Radiohead. If you play them a band that sounds similar to Radiohead, they won't have that, "Don't Like It!" response. As it sounds familiar. However, as it's derivative and samey it'll get boring for them pretty quickly, and it'll never give them the high that Radiohead gave them.

In contrast, if you play that same person a band that sounds very different to Radiohead they will indeed have that, "Don't Like It!" first impression ..and they'll push it away. Like a baby pushing away a spoonful of unfamiliar food.

As they're unwilling to try it again they'll never get over that initial "unfamiliar" period. So they'll never get to experience the high that that music might have offered them.

It's similar with food. If someone offered me a pack of pickled onion Quavers that'd be a novel experience for me, and there'd be a slight apprehension that I might not like them. However, it wouldn't be that novel. I've had Quavers before. I've had other brands of crisps that are pickled onion flavoured. So it's not too difficult to imagine what pickled onion Quavers might be like, and it wouldn't take too long to judge their merits.

However, if someone offered me some weird food from another country, with some weird name, that I had little frame of reference for, that would be different. Then I'd need a bit more time to acclimatise. The first time trying it I'd be truly out of my depth. "Hmm. Okay, that's not too bad, I guess." It'd only be the second or third time that I'd truly settle down to comfort binge on that food (assuming I did end up liking it).

"Go on, give us another one of those whatever-they're-called. They're not too bad, actually."

Before you know it they're your new favourite food and you can't remember a time when you didn't like them.

Nevertheless, my friend really disagrees - and maybe you do too.

If I'm right his folk band are missing a trick at their gig though.

From the Back of Beyond

I'm here with another post about Beyond Meat. Since my last post on the topic I've been watching the share price bounce around. Though, saying that, the volatility seems to have disappeared somewhat. I've also bought a little more. So I'm now in a position where I can lose. Though only a few hundred dollars. Nothing criminal.

I've been doing a little bit of research too. Again, nothing major, just asking Grok questions and doing a few Google searches. Thanks to this I've learnt a few things:

• Sales for meat substitute products like Beyond Meat have dropped in the last few years. (I already knew this, but seeing some ballpark figures for 2024 helped get a better sense of things.)
• Quorn, which is big in the UK, has a presence, albeit small, in the US Market.
• The general mycoprotein production patent for Quorn ran out about fifteen years ago (the main ingredient in Quorn products is mycoprotein, derived from a fungus). Meaning any company can now make a similar product.

This is interesting to me as I normally buy what I like (stocks wise). As I mentioned on here before, unusually for me I was buying $BYND stock even though I'd never tried the product. Since then I have. In fact, I actually bought some more - and this time made cheeseburgers. Uplifting the vegan option into a vegetarian one.

However, I've also since bought Quorn pieces as well. My recent delving into this topic inspired me to revisit a dish I haven't eaten in about twenty years. As a child my mam used to make sweet and sour pork - it's kind of a family recipe. That is, the versions you'll find on the supermarket shelves aren't what I remember liking as a child. Anyway, after I first became vegetarian my mam kept making it for me, only with Quorn pieces instead of the pork. As it was the one meat-based meal that I really missed.

It's basically just rice, pineapple chunks, soy sauce, cornflour and the meat itself.

(I'm actually a big fan of pineapple in proper food. I'm one of these people that likes pineapple on pizzas. I think cooked fruit in general goes massively underused and under-explored - there's still this sense that it must be eaten either raw/cold or only as some kind of treat. A steak pie is a meal, but an apple pie is a dessert. "Why can't I have apple pie for tea?" I would always ask as a child, "I thought apples were healthy?"

That reminds me, with it being winter, I must buy a strudel. And I'll eat it as the main meal, not as a dessert.)

This brings me to the point. Part of the answer to that childhood question is the lack of protein. A meal needs some substance. Rice with pineapple chunks and some sauce isn't very filling. It would be a bit light, and not really worth the hassle of boiling all the pans. However, if you add some pork (or, in my case, Quorn), suddenly you have something a lot more satisfying. So I've been making a mess in the kitchen knocking up this meal once again. Nostalgia through tastebuds.

The Two Types of Substitute

It seems there are two types of meat substitute. One that seeks to recreate the direct experience and flavour of eating meat. The other that simply provides a substitute for the protein in dishes.

The Beyond Burger does the former. Quorn (at least the Quorn pieces that I buy) do the latter.

When I make Sweet and Sour Pork the flavour comes from the pineapple and the soy sauce, and the oil and the cornflour that I fry the Quorn pieces in. I don't really care if they taste identical to pork or not.

So, speaking on a personal level, as a consumer - and as a vegetarian - I could see Quorn being a more regular part of my shopping basket. Whereas the Beyond Burger would be less routine for me. I'd happily have a Beyond Burger on a trip to McDonald's, and I'd occasionally buy them as a, "We haven't had burgers in buns in a while," option. However, as I've mentioned before, I've never been a big fan of chomping down on a steak. That's not me. I'm not really an eating meat all the time type of person. I do need protein though. Especially in Indian/Oriental dishes where I can't just "have cheese with it." Plus, Quorn has the appeal of being a single ingredient product (pretty much).

Of course, ninety percent of the market is people who actually eat meat. Who like eating meat. Who like that taste. So, weirdly, they're more the potential market for the "direct experience" products. And that's a big market.

[The sales pitch to those people has been awful in recent years though. I'll add an addendum explaining why.]

So why don't Beyond Meat just whack out some mycoprotein pieces onto the market?

This returns us to the above bullet points. When I saw that the patent had expired my immediate thought was, "Why don't Beyond offer a similar product?" Capitalising on their global brand dominance.

Working through the question with Grok there are a few obvious hurdles. Mainly developing (and funding) the facilities/experience/knowledge to do it. As ever, nothing is so simple in real life. There's also the problem of potentially confusing the customer. Not having a clear brand signal. Plus, of course, I'm just one person. Not everyone wants what I want. Though given Quorn's success and longevity in the UK they must be doing something right.

Therefore, if I was investing in what I myself buy at the check out, I'd be a bit more inclined to invest in Quorn. (They're owned by the multinational Monde Nissan, that's listed on the Philippine Stock Exchange - a bit beyond my reach and knowledge.)

(The other famous long-established brand in the UK is Linda McCartney, whose parent is now the US food company Hain Celestial. As with Innocent, which is now owned by Coca-Cola, we're often ahead of the curve, then we get bought out.)

(AI knocked this one out, so strange

they still can't get the text right. Kinda

makes it more visual though.)

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Addendum

Let's say you like ice cream, it's one of your favourite foods. Then I develop a product that's similar to ice cream.

However, instead of saying, "Hey, you like ice cream, you may also like this."

I say to you, "You're very naughty for eating ice cream. My product will completely replace it, and if I have my way you'll never eat another bowl of ice cream as long as you live."

How would you feel about my company and my product? I'm not only chastising you, I'm the guy that's taking away your favourite food, your bowl of ice cream, your childhood treat ..forever.

Not a great marketing pitch. You're probably going to hate me and my company. Fear it even. Fear I'm going to force you to change your life in some fundamental way that makes you worse off.

Well, that's been the marketing push to 90% of the market when it comes to meat substitute products. Especially during what we might call "The Woke Era."

So, lesson number one, the customer is king.

AI Art Gallery - Neo Northern Renaissance

It's snowing today. But let's not talk about today. Let's talk about yesterday. Yesterday I was playing around making AI art. I say 'making,' but really I was just typing prompts into Dezgo (my favoured image generator).

My prompts usually go along the lines of: something I'm interested in + historic artist I like

Anyway, yesterday I hit upon the, "Goth Woman painted by Jackson Pollock and Lucas Cranach the Elder ..with horoscope" aesthetic.

The mixing of two disparate artists with the medieval astrological vibe just worked for me.

Then it was just a case of generating dozens of random images to find the few that had that je ne sais quoi.

These were my picks. [Beware: not for everyone]

Welcome to my art gallery..

Then, finally, there's this one: that I'm dubbing the AI Mona Lisa. Yes, it's a touch explicit. That AI left the nipples really says something about how far the technology has come. Of course, lots of Lucas Cranach the Elder paintings feature bare-breasted women - so the inspiration is obvious. Still.. In fact, Dezgo has a tendency towards showing the female form nude, so you have to be careful. (There are a few images that I've kept that I daren't show publicly ..purely - and only! - for their artistic merits I should say.) Anyway, this one has a real allure. Like Blade Runner meets 'Allo 'Allo's "the fallen Madonna with ze big boobies."

When I'm rich enough to buy my chateau this will be hanging above the mantelpiece.

Bonfire Night Christmas Presents

I'm toying with another experiment. Today I might pay for Twitter.

Will it give me a boost in visibility, or will I just be paying for the privilege of remaining in peasant class? I'm also not sure whether to go basic (£35 for the year) or premium (£98). In essence it's like paying for advertising I guess.

I've been doing all my Christmas shopping, so maybe I should just go premium and write it off as a Christmas present to myself.

I might actually start wrapping presents today (!), which feels unfitting given it's Bonfire Night. However, I'll have a wander round the streets later on to watch the carnage and the fireworks, so I won't completely forgo the occasion.

I do like this time of year.

(I got Grok to make me an image;

I don't know why it's made me a girl)

[five minutes later..]

Okay, I've went premium. It was actually £84, not £98. Let's see what (if anything) happens.

(Dezgo popped me out this one in the meantime

- still girly, but a bit more fireworky)

Would They Fluoridate The Water In Eden

I was thinking about the future and I think everything comes back to the same question of what sort of world would you want to bring a child into. It concerns both your personal plans and the future of the wider human story.

This is why education has always been such a big thing for me. What is the point of this endless grind if even the children aren't spared the nine-til-five drudgery? From now until forever.

So this is the anchor.

What do we want for the world?

I've mentioned the folic acid in flour issue on here before. Since then I've been looking at the options for food without it. Flour is in so many products. Not just bread, but cakes, pastries, crackers, any product with breadcrumbs, the list goes on. For people that are advised to avoid folic acid for medical reasons it really is going to be a nightmare. It's a terribly irresponsible thing for a government to do. Flour is so ubiquitous in our diets. So any negative consequences are really going to be compounded.

Then I think about children. How would you raise a child in this chemical world? The very water is fluoridated. Things as simple as bread are massively fortified - by mandate.

Very little choice over schooling. Very little choice in regard diet or medical care. It's your child - you're bringing it into the world - but the state claims ownership over it. This is not a world for children, so these things need to change.

This is where my politics begins and ends.

Beyond Halloween

Okay, so I've just tried a Beyond Burger for the first time. I've never been more apprehensive about eating something.

It's a strange one for me, as I've been a vegetarian for twenty-five years - since I was a teenager - and I've never been one for meat substitutes. I've said this before on here, but I've just never had the appetite for meat. Even when I ate it I generally wasn't too keen on it. I couldn't quite escape the sense that I was eating an animal - unless the meat was very heavily disguised. Consequently, when I did make the decision to officially forgo it it was a smooth transition.

So the problem I had trying the beyond burger, ironically, was that it felt a little too much like meat. It's like spooky Halloween props. You know the severed head is just a model. You know the blood is just fake blood. Yet still, it can spook you out on some instinctive level. Especially if it looks realistic. So it kind of felt like I was cooking real meat as it sizzled in the pan.

On top of this there was also the mental apprehension about the ingredients. What is this I'm eating? Is it healthy? Is it natural?

So there was a multi-layered apprehension.

When I finally did sit down to eat it it was just like eating a regular beefburger as far as I could remember. (I bought the classic sesame seed burger buns in the end, I didn't go with wholemeal as I said I would.) It felt like when I was a kid and I had a burger from McDonald's or something.

It's that long since I ate meat that I can't really say how close to meat the taste actually was, but the vibe was the same. Again, I felt like I was eating meat, though my brain knew otherwise. So it was a little weird.

The only other meat substitute product I sometimes eat are Linda McCartney sausage rolls, lol. It's slightly different with them though. Firstly, because the pastry disguises the 'meat'. Then secondly I've been eating them intermittently for so long that I don't think of them as meat anyway. I just think of them as soya, which is what they are. So maybe it would be similar with the beyond burger after a few rounds of eating it.

Anyway, at least I can now say I've tried the product I've invested in. 

What School Should Look Like.

Let's say you're a parent. School has been abolished. You work thirty hours a week and need childcare to cover twenty of those hours. (Let's say a partner or family member looks after the child for the other ten.)

You get government vouchers to cover the cost of that twenty hours of childcare.

The beauty of this, as opposed to sending your child to school, is that it's flexible and works around you. With school your child had to be there from nine o'clock until three o'clock every day. You had to work around these hours. Making sure your child got picked up or dropped off at these times. No matter the inconvenience to you or the child. Now the childcare works around you. Mornings, afternoons, evenings, weekends. It covers the time you need covering. Nothing more, nothing less.

The Actual Education of Your Child

Now school is abolished your child has an online curriculum, chosen by you. (Though you can just follow the standard government-recommended curriculum if you'd prefer.) And they can do their work anytime they or you want them to. They simply open their laptop and get started. If they need help they can watch lessons online. Or they can ask the AI assistant. Or they can ask for help from online human teaching assistants.

When you send your child to childcare you can ask that your child spends some time doing this work. Perhaps they attend for five hours and you want them to spend two hours on education. The rest they can spend playing. The childcare worker doesn't have to be a teacher or an expert in Maths and English. All they have to do is help your child access the lessons and expert help that are available to them online.

Schools Become Education Hubs

On top of this, the place that was once your local school is now an education hub. More like a college than a school. Instead of attending rigidly from nine o'clock each day until three, as children once did, now your child simply attends for a few hours a week for specific lessons - in a timeslot that is convenient to you. Just as someone would go for a driving lesson at a specific time for that specific reason.

The government offers you ten hours of this local, in person, education to use each week. And you can use as little or as much of it as you like.

This real world education is focused on the most crucial aspects of education - Maths and English. It also offers things that develop social skills and public speaking. Such as sports, debate and drama.

So, for example, your child could have a ninety minute maths lesson on a Monday morning. Two hours of English on a Tuesday afternoon. Then drama class on Thursday evening.

As these education hubs would no longer be providing round the clock care for every child, as they did when they were schools, the quality of education offered would be dramatically improved. Instead of thirty children to a classroom, for six or seven whole hours each day, there would be one or two hour lessons that have just four or five children in the room.

There would be less time in school, but that time would be much more focused and worthwhile.

Likewise, poor or struggling families could be allocated more of this in person help with education if that was needed.

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[To give a simpler example as an addendum, you could halve class sizes just by halving the length of the school day. Instead of thirty children in a classroom for six hours you could have fifteen in the morning and fifteen in the afternoon. This would be better for the actual education of the child. They'd be happier, school would be more peaceful and inducive to learning, and they'd get more care and individual focus.

However, if this happened people would cry, "But who will look after the child on the morning/afternoon when I'm at work!"

Showing again that school in its current form is little more than glorified childcare. Though people are loath to admit this. That's why school needs scrapping altogether and replacing with actual (and genuinely flexible) childcare. It's only then that an education that works for the actual sake of the child's development and learning can be put into place.]