random & reading round up – march 2018
Seeing as my last monthly update was so long I thought I’d do another mini update about a couple of random bits, along with a links round up of what I found interesting in the last month or so.
me me me
First of all let’s talk about what I got up to in March?
Running – I ran the Eastbourne half marathon in 1:35 which I was very happy with considering I didn’t get to do any running in between that and the TW Half 2 weeks earlier due to all of the snow! It is a really tough run with a huge hill between 2 and 3.5 miles, you basically run up towards the Seven Sisters cliffs, and the rest of the run you are pretty much slogging out as you’re already knackered. There are also lot’s of switchbacks on small paths and bridges towards the end which really kills any momentum you might have going. Definitely not a PB track that’s for sure, but an interesting run and the scenery is nice although was very grey on the actual day (see pic above!)
Mother’s Day – It was Mother’s day. Rather than buy the bog standard presents I decided to gather up all of our videos we’ve made on our phones/cameras over the last 2 years of TFS Jr (and other stuff but mainly they’re of the baby) and merge them all into one file to burn onto a DVD. I don’t know if anyone else has ever tried this but it is quite a monumental task! Google photos is a godsend in that at least they pretty much were all in one place, but the varying file formats and just the sheer volume of them meant it took ages to organise them into one place and the right order.
I ended up buying a piece of software that converted all the different files and merging them into one handy file so I could burn that straight to DVD. It wasn’t the most professional finish (i.e. no nice intro screen and no scene selection) but it seemed to do the job. The software cost about £35 and obviously I can reuse it for future projects so didn’t see too bad, although if anyone knows of any freeware/open source software that can do this kind of thing, please do let me know? Thanks!
Work outing – We had a paid for night out on the town (well, bowling) with work. Work isn’t really all that bad when all is said and done, and this sort of thing will definitely be missed if/when I depart from an office style employee job.
40 is looming – It was my Bro-in-laws 40th and we all celebrated with a party round their house. Very enjoyable! But it is a bit of a slap round the face that I’m 37 this year and 40 isn’t that far off. Not that I’m dreading it or anything like that per se, and as everyone always says, still feel like I’m 25 so no big deal, but the march of time is relentless and these things tend to crop up sooner than we think or we’d like. It also makes me think about this blog, and that the original 5 year plan time limit is coming up. Obviously I will write up a post about it when that time comes (around July) but I certainly won’t be wrapping the blog up just because of that so don’t worry about that 1 So much has changed in those 5 years, and there is still plenty left to write about in my little noggin, so you are stuck with me for quite a well yet before I get bored I reckon 😉
FI Meetup – Unfortunately the FI London meetup in March was the same week as the work outing mentioned above, and my body cannot handle two nights out in the same week any more, so I had to miss out on it! However there is another one already in the pipeline which, barring any disasters between now and then, I will be attending! Details are as follows:
Facebook Event Link
Friday, June 15 at 6 PM – 11:30 PM
Rose and Crown
47, Colombo Street, SE1 8DP London, United Kingdom
Hope to see some of you there!
Reading round up
Here are a few things that piqued my interest on t’internet recently.
- How much do you spend drunk shopping? – This link admittedly came to me via an email which I normally ignore 2 but I the subject made me kinda laugh, and it rings true with my previous experiences with alcohol in life, 🙂 so thought it was worth highlighting.
- Jet Engine Powered Beer Cooler – I don’t think this one needs much more explanation. Not going to win any Sustainability invention of the year awards but it’s a really funny read.
- Gamblers Ruin – I’d heard of this before but never really read properly about this and internelised how important it is. Done by Forty has given it his usual interesting write up. Very important for those of us doing the “No Lay” style of matched betting (either Acca’s or Each Way betting). To summarise the conclusions of the research quoted, when the odds are not in your favour you are better of just going in for one or two huge bets, hoping it wins then walking away (still rather stupid, but mathematically better than playing lot’s of small hands/stakes). However if the odds are in our favour as they are with the two matched betting strategies, then we are better off playing many smaller stakes. I guess it just reinforces that bank roll management is key 3, which I guess I already knew but again have not been practicing very well until recently.
- More internet dramz – It seems us PF bloggers can’t stop putting our foot in it, and Mr 1500 got in a bit of hot water for being “Really not funny” when he “‘pretends’ to be a jerk” to his wife. The original post in question is “an ask the readers” style one about How many loads of laundry do you do each week. The objection from blogger(s) Nicole and Maggie was a comment accusing him of being a “Darth Vader boyfriend” and they also put up a short post on it here. It’s all been *kind of* sorted by the looks as Mr 1500 wrote a pretty fair email of apology (included at the bottom of N&M’s post in the comments), and took down his subsequent post which was apparently mocking the Darth Vader comment. I don’t want to drag any more mud up that’s already been settled so won’t comment any further on it, but thought it was quite interesting yet again to see the differing opinions. I will say I think Mr 1500 handled the aftermath really quite well, especially the email apology. Actually screw it I can’t resist…. I don’t really see the issue with the original attempt at humour if the woman is quite clearly in on the gag, and the author is knowingly making himself look stupid, well that’s the way I view those kind of posts from Mr 1500 anyway. It’s an attempt at a kind of satire, which admittedly does not always work in the way intended 4 – see Revisionist History Podcast episode The Satire Paradox for more on that one – but I think his intentions are clear to send himself and that kind of attitude up, all in my own humble opinion of course 😉
- Financial and life lessons from parents – I really liked both weenie’s and Done By Forty’s slightly related posts about lessons they learned from their parents while growing up (or rather when they were fully grown adults in weenie’s case 🙂 ):
Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need roads
Finally, the Economist had a great article on Flying cars which had links to the following mental looking beasts of the road/sky, which excited me greatly:
Terrafugia T-FX – Obviously wins bonus swag points for being very nearly named “TFS”
Kitty Hawk – Have a secretive video of the “Flyer” and a picture of a rather clunky looking air taxi called “Cora”:
Joby Aviation – Couldn’t find a proper pic of this one but here is a link to a decent article about their “air taxi” which has a podcast at the end of it profiling some dude who has been trying to make flying cars for about 50 years, definitely worth a listen!
Volocopter – Basically looks like a human sized drone. Rotat-awesome!
EHang 184 – Another huge drone this time from a Chinese drone maker EHang. Slightly less curvaceous as the one above but still… cool as f@ck!
Lilium – Vertical take off jet!
AeroMobil – It literally is a flying car!
All images are copyright of the respective companies/websites
That’s yer lot for today, sorry for the complete mish mash of subjects but hopefully there was at least something of interest for most people in there 🙂
Next post up… the No Lay Acca guide… finally! 🙂
Notes:
- Or unlucky to those who don’t like it! Although why are you still reading this if so haha?! ↩
- So don’t think about sending me a barrage of promotional links, douches! ↩
- E.g. “Bets should be 1% of your total bank or less allowing you to survive a very long string of losers” ↩
- In other words there might just be plenty of blokes out there going “Hell yea Mr 1500, you tell that wife of yours what’s what dude!!!” – which is clearly not his intention at all. ↩
That’s an awesome half marathon time, congratulations! Gotta say, the weather looks pretty miserable for it but I suppose it’s better than running in the blazing heat. My best half marathon time is 1:45 from back when I was 18 and a lifeguard so I doubt it’s ever gonna get much quicker than that, always been more of a hiker than a runner.
As for the flying cars – I remember watching a TED talk years ago about such things. Got me very excited at the time but it seems the whole thing was a fraud unfortunatly – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moller_M400_Skycar
Thanks Guy!
It was absolutely freezing to be fair but the running did warm me up by about mile 6 I think haha.
Hiking is great fun, I am thinking about doing some trail running which combines the two I guess.
Hah… that Paul Moller is mainly what the Podcast I linked to is about, a really fascinating story! I think he had the right idea but was about 40 years to early unfortunately for him.
The new breed of flying cars that are built around high powered electric motors seems most promising to me and less likely to be another scam, and the fact that huge and generally clever companies like Google are backing some of them surely means we’ll see some of these on the road/in the sky within 5 years. Will be interesting to find out either way.
Cheers!
Ha ha! I reached 40s this year, no joke mate, you start to feel it. Me, mostly because I slightly injured my ankle playing around with my other half, see the irony, I couldn’t train for almost 8 weeks. 2 more kg. Yes, I like food. Bring that no lay acca guide, as I usually run away from Acca’s. A good day to you, sir. I go downstairs to put some laundry in the machine now.
Yea I am already starting to feel it to be honest. The running is still going well but the joints feel a bit more creaky than I did even last year.
I also like food 🙂
Will get the guide out asap my friend! Good luck with the laundry haha 😉
Excellent half marathon time!
I got my first running injury when I was 37. I had been living a charmed life up until then of simply going out whenever I felt like it without any warming up etc.
Now getting on for a decade later, I try to mix it up a bit – body weight exercises, yoga, HIT as well as running. I think it does help with the injury prevention. Pay a lot more attention to what I’m eating too.
Hi Chris,
Thanks! I’ve had a few injuries before now to be fair and have recovered well. Consistent squatting 🙂 definitely seems to help but I have been a bit lax with both that and running in general recently. Now the weather is better I hope to get out a lot more during lunch breaks at work.
Funnily enough I have a health “MOT” at work tomorrow, they are providing them for free which is pretty good. It is the first time I’ve done anything of the kind, so it will be interesting to see what they come back with. My Prediction: generally quite healthy but cut down on the booze! Hah! 🙂
Thanks for featuring the blog not once, but twice!
That software seems like it might be a future purchase for us as well. We already have a ton of video and it’s just going to get more out of control when the kid gets here. And yes, thank God for Google Photos.
Haha, no worries, you always come up with interesting subjects that get my brain buzzing!
Yea something like that is needed. I just think that you will never sit there and watch old movie clips, but sticking them on a DVD you can kind of just put them on in the background and reminisce while playing or doing something else. So it seemed like a really good idea to do.
Hi TFS,
I love the idea of amalgamating all your videos onto a dvd so you can easily watch them in future. I really need to get organised with this kind of thing.
It’s fascinating seeing all those pictures of flying cars. I’ve never really believed that we’ll get to a future with flying cars, not just because of the logistics of creating a reliable and relatively easy to fly car, but also because of what it would mean for air space. Do we really want our beautiful skies full of flying machines? I’m torn. On the one hand the idea really excites me, on the other it makes me a bit sad…
Interesting post!
Corinna
It takes a lot of organising, that is for sure!
Photos are even worse though as there are more of them. The bane of my life 🙂 (not really, I love looking at old and recent memories so it’s a nice excuse to have to “organise” them every so often, I just wish there was more hours in the day to get it done)
Yea I do agree with you on that one, I’m not so sure if it’s a good idea either. The amount of power needed to get one airborne must be pretty huge, which is surely not great for the environment.
Elon Musk is not attempting to build any flying cars, it is probably worth noting 🙂
They do look wicked cool though!
Cheers
Cheers for the shout out, TFS.
Just had a look through the ‘internet dramz’ with Mr 1500 – I thought it was quite funny (because she was in on it). Fair play to him for the apology, though I’m not sure one was warranted.
Thanks for posting the link about ‘Gamblers Ruin’ – very interesting and think I’ll try to read some more about it. I must remember it too when I’m having a particularly bad run on the no-lay accas and EW bets – need to trust the EV!
No worries weenie 🙂
Yea, I think some people are a bit too easy to jump into the “I am offended” mode but hey different folks and all that.
Yea it really drove it home to me that staying liquid is the key when you actually have the edge, so you can endure the inevitable losing streaks. No point in the go in big attitude there, the key is to eke out your %age profits over time and large number of bets!
I mean don’t get me wrong, my theoretical matched betting “bank” is currently huge and I could stand a very long string of losers even if I were betting at say £40ew, but there is something different about losing a fairly large amount in just 3 or 4 bets that my brain can’t take at the moment. As soon as I dropped back to £10ew it became much easier to handle the fact that I could have 50 losing bets (very unlikely!) and still have only lost £1000. Over time as my “Each way bank” becomes larger, I will drop the percentage as well so the amount of losers becomes even bigger.
For the record, as of after the GN, the Each way bank stands at £5862 and I am still only doing £15ew bets (very occasionally £20ew if the rating is very high). So that works out around 0.5% of the bank per bet and I can withstand 200 straight up losers in a row*. I think even the most hardened pessimist would deem that occurrence a near impossibility! I am pretty comfortable with that so if/when the bank gets up to say 8000 I will up the stakes to £20ew.
*In fact it would obviously be even more than that, because if the bank dwindled significantly I would reduce my stakes back again
That’s a huge EW bank – think mine’s less than £100 at the moment but I am obvs placing very small bets. I just analysed Saturday’s bets where I made a profit of £32. Had I placed £5EW bets instead, I would have won £395! Food for thought there though with the bigger bank roll, although I’m using gubbed/restricted accounts so not sure I can increase by much more.
That’s a big profit on Saturday, I didn’t get much time to look at it as was busy doing family stuff but still got a few on and got kinda lucky if I’m honest.
I think we have a different opinion of what a “bank” is judging from your latest monthly update:
“I’m only placing small bets though (50p or £1 each way) but made £194 this month using this strategy”
For me this means your bank is a now minimum of £194, but that would be if your starting bank was zero which makes no sense, so likely this means you started with £100 and now your bank £294.
If you want to bank all your profit and start with a £100 each month then that’s obviously fine but I’m more than happy rolling my profits into bigger bets in future. The maths here says the more you stake the more you win, and it’s just a case of staying liquid enough to ride out any losing streaks.
So yea hopefully food for thought for you there* 😉
*Of course that’s notwithstanding restricted stakes accounts, so if you are already hitting max bets with £1 or whatever then there is not much you can do apart from the obvious one of opening up some other accounts? There seem to be plenty of bookies on OddsMonkey each way matcher it seems, which are crap for offers but might be good for this sort of thing.
Also just to clarify I started with a bank of £1000 and its now £5213, I did the calculations slightly wrong on my last comment. I went from doing £10ew to £15ew when it hit around the £3k mark.
“£100 and now your bank £294.”
This…sorry, wasn’t clear! I’ve started increasing my bets (a few £2EW, woohoo) so will take things slowly.
Agree, there’s always new accounts to open, a couple have restricted me to 1p or zero now, so yes, I need to move on to others!
WOW get you with your run time! ha ha I saw that internet drama “unfolding” (laundry pun intended. Mr 1500 is such a hilarious guy I honestly don’t understand why they didnt get that straight away!
He handled it like the pro he is as always!
Little Miss Fire
https://littlemissfireblog.wordpress.com
Haha, love the pun, why didn’t I think of that one!?! 🙂
I LOVED that article on electric, flying vehicles! It seems so far-fetched (we’ve been promised flying cars for years), but the future is right around the corner. Google is actually testing these now: http://www.futurecar.com/article-2055-1.html
Bring it!
Thanks for the extra link Carl, exciting stuff indeed 🙂