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So, what happened today?

Gervais, wow he was brilliant and so fudging offensive, loved every minute of it if I’m honest haha, a routine about gays/GHod and aids was my favourite, he was fudging ruthless at times
 
I made this thing today.


Or, it took me the best part of a week, but put it out there today. Thought I might as well share with some of you weirdos. :p
I don't mean to be rude, as I think the whole NFT thing has flown right over my head... but... why did it take a week, what is it, why is it, did you set out to make it look and sound like that, do you make money from doing this, can I do similar and make money???
 
Drove into London the other day and didn't pay the congestion charge in time and got an £80 fine. Bit of a joke they give you only 3 days to pay it, should be a week or 2.
 
I don't mean to be rude, as I think the whole NFT thing has flown right over my head... but... why did it take a week, what is it, why is it, did you set out to make it look and sound like that, do you make money from doing this, can I do similar and make money???

Video takes a long ass time to make, especially if you need to animate and render several elements. The blobby 3D-thing in the top left corner is a 3D model I made and animated (and that takes time). The greenish thing is a simulation of fungus growth and took forever to render. Lots of the elements on the video are drawings that also takes time to draw and animate. Making this kind of stuff, for me anyway, is an iteration type of thing, you make one layer, then another, and a third ... then you delete the first etc - until I got something I like. I like art that has a psychedelic feel, not in lots of flashy strobe lights, but things you look at that look a bit familiar, but you still don't know what it is - uncanny valley type of stuff - and obviously quite abstract. So that's what I usually make.

Yeah, I make a bit of money on it - that I just invest in other NFTs that I like. In theory you can, of course, but the whole market is saturated with amateurs that see the brick people like me (like a tier or two above the absolute amateurs) make and think they can do something similar - but they can't, and just fill the up the blockchain with garbage. But they come and go. I wouldn't recommend it unless you enjoy making stuff. :D

I don't mean to sound roostery, obviously, I'm definitely no expert myself, more of a hobbyist, but I think having a bit of an interest and a bit of a knack for what is decent and what is not so great is a better starting point than just thinking everything looks crap, and therefore it's easy to make money on it. It's definitely not! The guys making the big bucks, most of them anyway, are insanely talented artists. :)

Oh, and none offense taken, I'm perfectly fine (and used to) people not liking my stuff. I know it's not for most. But I love it. :D
 
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Just read the BBC news story on the Chinese Tennis Star who has gone missing after saying she was sexually abused by Chinese Tennis official, some story that.
 
This is defo the future !!

The online bank Atom Bank has introduced a four-day work week for its 430 staff without cutting their pay.

Employees now work 34 hours over four days and get Monday or Friday off, when previously they clocked up 37.5 hours across the whole week.

Boss Mark Mullen told the BBC it was inspired by the pandemic and would help improve wellbeing and retain staff.

However, employees will have to work longer hours on the days that they are in.

"Before Covid, the conventional wisdom was you had to commute in, sit at a desk all day and repeat that process when you commuted home," said Mr Mullen, who has led the Durham-based bank since 2014.

"Covid showed us that it wasn't necessary…I think doing 9-5, Monday to Friday is a pretty old fashioned way of working."

Atom was one of the UK's first digital challenger banks and had £2.7bn of loans on its books in the last financial year. Its new working arrangements kicked in on 1 November after a review found they would not affect customer service or productivity.

Mr Mullen said the new arrangement was voluntary, but strongly reflected his staff's preferences for more flexible working.

"Everyone is expected to stick to it," he added. "I can't be sending my staff emails on a Friday, I can't expect to them to respond to them."

_121759642_rivergreenabove-3.jpg
IMAGE SOURCE,ATOM BANK
Image caption,
The bank's headquarters in Durham
Working patterns have changed over time. In the 19th Century most British workers worked six day weeks, but in the 1930s Henry Ford in the US and pharmacy chain Boots in the UK popularised the two-day weekend as a way of boosting wellbeing and productivity.

Now, calls for a four-day work week are growing amid similar claims that it could improve people's lives.

Recent research found trials of a four-day week among public sector workers in Iceland were an "overwhelming success" and helped reduce stress and burnout.

And Microsoft Japan said sales had been boosted by nearly 40% during an experiment in which staff worked a four-day week on full pay back in 2019.

However, some employers believe it's not the right thing to do.

In 2019, UK science research foundation the Wellcome Trust scrapped plans to trial a four-day week for its 800 head office staff, saying it would be "too operationally complex".

The decision followed a three-month study which found compressing work into a Monday to Thursday window could negatively affect the wellbeing of some workers and harm productivity.

'Increased exposure to stress'
"It is undoubtedly a positive move for employers to seek to reduce people's working hours without compromising pay," Ben Willmott, head of public policy at the Chartered Institute of Professional Development, told the BBC.

"However, I think the challenge of simply reducing people's working hours without other changes is that you can increase exposure to stress, which is already one of the main causes of working time lost to sickness absence."

Atom is asking its staff to compress their hours into a shorter period, and proportionally their hours have not been cut by a whole day. But Mr Mullen said workers would still get paid the same and enjoy a "three day weekend in perpetuity".

Media caption,
Would a four-day week boost productivity?
He also hopes it will help attract talent at time when staff attrition at the bank is "unusually" high due to the pandemic.

"With Covid-19 causing vast numbers of people to reconsider how they want to live their lives, anything that leads to more productive, healthier, and, crucially, happier colleagues, is a win for everyone," he added.
 
This is defo the future !!

The online bank Atom Bank has introduced a four-day work week for its 430 staff without cutting their pay.

Employees now work 34 hours over four days and get Monday or Friday off, when previously they clocked up 37.5 hours across the whole week.

Boss Mark Mullen told the BBC it was inspired by the pandemic and would help improve wellbeing and retain staff.

However, employees will have to work longer hours on the days that they are in.

"Before Covid, the conventional wisdom was you had to commute in, sit at a desk all day and repeat that process when you commuted home," said Mr Mullen, who has led the Durham-based bank since 2014.

"Covid showed us that it wasn't necessary…I think doing 9-5, Monday to Friday is a pretty old fashioned way of working."

Atom was one of the UK's first digital challenger banks and had £2.7bn of loans on its books in the last financial year. Its new working arrangements kicked in on 1 November after a review found they would not affect customer service or productivity.

Mr Mullen said the new arrangement was voluntary, but strongly reflected his staff's preferences for more flexible working.

"Everyone is expected to stick to it," he added. "I can't be sending my staff emails on a Friday, I can't expect to them to respond to them."

_121759642_rivergreenabove-3.jpg
IMAGE SOURCE,ATOM BANK
Image caption,
The bank's headquarters in Durham
Working patterns have changed over time. In the 19th Century most British workers worked six day weeks, but in the 1930s Henry Ford in the US and pharmacy chain Boots in the UK popularised the two-day weekend as a way of boosting wellbeing and productivity.

Now, calls for a four-day work week are growing amid similar claims that it could improve people's lives.

Recent research found trials of a four-day week among public sector workers in Iceland were an "overwhelming success" and helped reduce stress and burnout.

And Microsoft Japan said sales had been boosted by nearly 40% during an experiment in which staff worked a four-day week on full pay back in 2019.

However, some employers believe it's not the right thing to do.

In 2019, UK science research foundation the Wellcome Trust scrapped plans to trial a four-day week for its 800 head office staff, saying it would be "too operationally complex".

The decision followed a three-month study which found compressing work into a Monday to Thursday window could negatively affect the wellbeing of some workers and harm productivity.

'Increased exposure to stress'
"It is undoubtedly a positive move for employers to seek to reduce people's working hours without compromising pay," Ben Willmott, head of public policy at the Chartered Institute of Professional Development, told the BBC.

"However, I think the challenge of simply reducing people's working hours without other changes is that you can increase exposure to stress, which is already one of the main causes of working time lost to sickness absence."

Atom is asking its staff to compress their hours into a shorter period, and proportionally their hours have not been cut by a whole day. But Mr Mullen said workers would still get paid the same and enjoy a "three day weekend in perpetuity".

Media caption,
Would a four-day week boost productivity?
He also hopes it will help attract talent at time when staff attrition at the bank is "unusually" high due to the pandemic.

"With Covid-19 causing vast numbers of people to reconsider how they want to live their lives, anything that leads to more productive, healthier, and, crucially, happier colleagues, is a win for everyone," he added.
Doesn't surprise me.

I've had some dealings with challenger banks lately and amateur hour would be a compliment.
 
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