1st January 2024 Happy New Year!

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 Monday 1st. A grey, wet and windy day is promised. Up at 7.15. Stove lit straight away. It felt cold in the room. First time in a while I had to snuggle under the duvet. It was 60F/5C in the room. So no reason to feel colder than usual.

 9.00 42F. Grey and damp. Went to bed about 11.30. Woken by muffled fireworks and then later again. Didn't check the time. 66F/19C. I need to bring in more logs from the greenhouse. Then summon up the will to go for a walk.

 10.15 Returning from a walk to the village. The first in some time. The traffic was very light. With only three cars on the outward journey. Double that number on my return leg. It remained dry but with a rather chilly SE breeze. I photographed the extension of the beck running past the bottom of the garden. Nearly a kilometre away the same stream feeds the huge, marsh pond. It is obvious that only 1/3 of the capacity of the 40cm drainpipes is being used. So it is unlikely the beck will burst its banks locally.

 I saw three Teslas this morning. Denmark has reached 200,000 registered EVs. No doubt helped by the arrival of cheaper vehicles. The charging network remains sparse. Leaving many city, apartment dwellers without the option of going over to the battery driven cars.  There are 4.7 million cars registered in Denmark as of October 2023. 

 So the proportion of  EVs remains very low compared to countries like Norway. Where there has been strong government encouragement to change to EVs.  Norway has 603,000 EVs out of a total of 5.3 million cars in total. While EVs may reduce noise and pollution there are huge footprints in mining and manufacture. Hopefully, new battery chemistries will reduce the global impact of sourcing the raw materials.

 It is not often I can listen to anyone for long before they irritate me. Then along comes Alexandr Wang. The CEO of Scale AI. I just sat and watched 1h.30minutes of him answering questions in an interview on YouTube. He is obviously a gifted genius and more articulate and knowledgable than most other humans. Only later did I discover his abuse of cheap offshore labour for object labelling. A task presently requiring human identification of objects in an image on a computer screen. This data is then used for machine learning of AI systems. 

 His recruiting tactics and personal choices were interesting. He looks for weird people. Those driven by an unfathomable thirst for knowledge and problem solving. He sets goals for himself every day. Even if these are expanded to address new problems as they crop up. He also mentioned how he believes that one's surrounding greatly influence one's motivation and productivity. 

 Which, I surmised, can be easily turned on its head. To say that inferior surroundings will have a negative impact. On the thought processes of those so housed. If a factory or office worker is provided with drab accommodation. Then one will expect a negative impact on the workforce's performance. Carried to its natural progression the same can be said for one's living conditions. Poor homes lead to poor performance of the occupants. Perhaps leading to anti-social behaviours or crime. It's not such a stretch. Pun intended.

 It follows that the comfort levels and appearance of my own home are having a negative impact on my psyche. The ugliness and clutter I see daily are depleting my motivation and increasing depression. My need to walk, ride and drive are all means to escape from my situation at home. The countless hours I spend at the computer are simply narrowing my field of view. To help me ignore the ugliness which surrounds me. Perhaps the oversized TVs in poorer homes aren't so easily dismissed after all. They allow the viewers to easily enter an alternative reality.

 Increased daylight in the home is a double-edged sword. It raises my mood but exposes the flaws in my surroundings. My vision and mind are constantly abused by poorly finished surfaces. So I must spend valuable energy in ignoring them while I am at home. 

 Conversely, this also explains why I get so much pleasure from my modest home improvements. The new [recycled] carpet in the entrance to the lounge was and remains a delight. Every time I walk across it. The new tiles and the runner in the entrance hall. These had an enormous impact on my enjoyment of these areas. Not least in how they raised the overall appearance of Chez Hovel. Just as did my fitting architraves to hide the ragged edges to the door cutouts in the walls. Then there were the skirting boards to finish the untidy bases of the walls. 

 Fitting a new kitchen work surface with sink and hotplate. Each upgrade brought its own pleasure in appearance and efficiency. The darker seasons meant that SAD brought about a pause in my activities. As I expended my efforts and attention elsewhere. In my e-bike and Morris Minor. Neither of which is ideal for mood enhancement in winter.

 Painting walls white certainly brought in the light. At the expense of exposing the serious flaws. So I must attend to the poorly finished walls in the living room and kitchen first. Not just for the increased insulation values but for the mood enhancement of a major, visual improvement. I can treat the process as combined physical and mental therapy. Increased warmth from the insulation will be a bonus. Mentally, physically and monetarily. If my stove becomes too much for the lounge. Then I can share the excess heat with the rest of the house. 

 19.00 Dinner was salad. With poached eggs and tuna. I finished off with milky coffee as it was still early.

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