Schedule a Video

5th December 2024

Dear YouTube,

It would be really helpful in this YouTube business if I could schedule a video live to my channel members and then set a date to go live to YouTube in general. Now you can only post a video live to channel members with a date to go live to everyone.

I’d like to give my members early access to my videos, but I honestly can post videos up to a year in advance, and you just can’t have a year’s worth of videos flowing around to members and not open to the public. It would clutter up my channel and make it hard to find the live videos. Further to that point, the algorithm just wouldn’t suggest a video that has been up to members for a year to none members.

Along those lines, if I added another level of membership it would be good if I could give those members early access like two weeks rather than one. The whole idea of channel membership is to give me an easy way to make more money on YouTube and in order to make my members happy I need to have a video up every day meaning that if I go on vacation work comes with me. I take a day off, not a chance, I have uploads to make the paying customers happy.

It would be really helpful if I could upload all my videos and be done with them until I get comments or something of that nature. However, the truth is that I can’t upload all my videos at once and just post them for members. There are too many of them for that and it would overwhelm members making scheduling videos effectively useless once a channel has memberships.

Channel memberships is a new thing but this is a bug that really should be addressed. It would make my life easier and my members happier

Best,



Richard Leland Neal

Screenplay into a Novel

5th December 2024

Dear Screenwriter,

From you ad I can tell that you’re looking for someone to turn your screenplay into a novel. It just so happens that I’ve done that but never been published. This makes me a bad candidate for this job but do you have any better candidates? I can show you the script I started with and the novel I ended with and we can talk about publishers.

Truth is, I’m willing to work on speculation but I need to see what I’m working with and if you want to get the novel published fast there are ways that you can do that but none are ideal. Still, an accomplish novelist shouldn’t be willing to do the work on speculation.

Anyway, as far as the Sci-Fi elements I got the Bank of America award for physics in high school and hold a BA in Psychology so I’m something of a geek. I’ve had a few short films produced and written a few short stories in addition to my novel but nothing that would make me as an author you should pay attention to.

Bottom line, if what you need is someone to write you’re film into a novel I can do that and I can show you the proof. If what you need is someone who can help you market your screenplay then that’s just not me.

I grant that I probably shouldn’t be writing to you because of how bad a fit for this job I am, but the truth is that you miss every shot you don’t take.

Kind regards,



Richard Leland Neal

Advocate of Balance

3rd December 2024

Dear Advocate of Balance,

It looks like you want to write a book on balance and are having some trouble understanding the nature of the work. Calling this a religion and the book you mean to write a Bible would imply that you are a prophet. Prophets right Bibles.

There are a few Bible adjacent materials like an industrial Bible meant to be the end all catch all book on whatever subject it is covering. There are religious works like Bible interpretations that are not written by prophets and often by non believers. However, if you are looking to write a bible and start a religion you have to be a prophet not just a man with a good idea.

If your goal here is to start a group that worships you and will do strange things thinking you’re a god or connected with god what you are looking to write is a Bible. If you just think you have the right idea on how to live life you’re thinking of a book on philosophy.

Further to that point, there are already religions and philosophies that teach balance as you would like to focus on. Zen would be the best example. I can also say that the biographers of Buddha would fall into this category.

I’ll first grant that I don’t think I’m the right man for the job you have open. I’d work on it so long as the money is green and paying me wouldn’t harm you or your family in anyway. However, I think you’re looking for someone with a Doctorate of Divinity or a PHD in Philosophy.

Best wishes,



Richard Leland Neal

Jurassic Coast - Sidmouth

I left Exmouth along the South West Coast Path, a long-distance trail spanning the southwest of England. The Jurassic Coast makes up a portion of this path. As I passed the holiday resort in Sandy Bay, I had my first striking view of the ochre-coloured cliffs rising sharply from the sea. This was the type of coastline I travelled all the way to Sidmouth.

To explain how these cliffs formed, I need to wind back the clock a few million years when the continents were joined together in a single supercontinent called Pangaea, and Britain was in the centre landlocked. In the Triassic period (251-200 mya), southern Britain was about 20 degrees north of the equator. Today, it is around 50 degrees. Initially, the climate was seasonally strong, almost monsoonal, but later the middle of Pangaea became very hot and desert-like. It was during this period that the Triassic section of the Jurassic Coast was formed, where the rocks consist of ferric iron oxide minerals. This type of mineral contains iron and oxygen, and when the iron in the rock mixes with oxygen, it reacts and creates this reddish-brown colour seen in the cliff face. This type of deposit is referred to as New Red Sandstone, a combination of sandstone, mudstone and conglomerates, which are rocks made of rounded pebbles and large stones cemented together.

Erosion, heavy rainfalls, and changes in the rock layers impact the cliffs, making them crumbly and fragile. For instance, east of Sandy Bay is an area called "The Floors", where the cliffs formed a series of levels after several landslides. So instead of having a smooth surface, the cliffs have distinct horizontal shelves. As these shelves occur at different heights, they end up with a stepped or terraced-like appearance. These features help geologists learn about the prehistory of the area.

Past Sandy Bay was the delightful village of Budleigh Salterton, which is known for two main things. Firstly, it is the birthplace of Sir Walter Raleigh (c1554), a soldier, writer, explorer and favourite of Queen Elizabeth I. He led numerous expeditions on the queen's behalf, including to South America's fabled city of gold, El Dorado. When he was imprisoned by King James I in the Tower of London for treason, he wrote the book "The History of the World". Unfortunately, he met an untimely death by beheading.

The second thing Budleigh Salterton is known for is the shingle beach and the red-stained cliffs brimming with pebbles that were washed down from an ancient mountain range that has since vanished. Studying the cliffs up close, I can see the tough quartzite pebbles embedded in the much softer mudstone. Dating these rocks was made possible by the fossil discovery of 'the Devon rhynchosaur', an ancient herbivorous reptile. Its distinctive feature was an elongated snout that resembled a bird's beak.

As I continued my journey to Sidmouth, I marvelled at the terrific display of New Red Sandstone in the sea stacks at Ladram Bay, where the layers of red sediment compressed over millions of years were topped with green vegetation.

Walking the promenade at Sidmouth afforded me spectacular views of the English Channel, the surrounding cliffs and delightful Regency buildings. In the early 1800s, the town was a safe haven from creditors for the Duke and Duchess of Kent and their baby daughter, the future Queen Victoria. They stayed in the charming Woolbrook Cottage, known today as the Royal Glen Hotel.

Fun fact: Did you know that at one time, Great Britain was in the southern hemisphere, and it was largely submerged? We just need to roll back 514 million years to the Late Cambrian age.


PS. Experience our virtual challenges in real life - The Conqueror Adventures

The team at The Conqueror Challenges
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Children in Gaza?

 30th November 2024

Hey McBeth,

 One of the things that has been eating at me is the pictures of starving children in Gaza. There has to be something wrong with them because you only see starving children and never adults or soldiers. If the famine was real then you would see large groups of people starving not just pictures of children.

 They could be starving the children to make propaganda, but what I heard was that these children are starving because of a genetic condition. I haven’t gotten any hard points on that, but there is a lot of inbreeding in Gaza.

 I’ve heard about trucks of aid sitting because workers don’t have time to pick them up and even Hamas attacking people who go to get aid. I heard Hamas cut one guy up and had people stone him to death after he went to get food for his family.

 You have to weigh in that Israel is being force to feed enemy forces here, but the whole thing is disturbing.

 

I’d like to hear your thoughts,

 

 

Richard Leland Neal

 

Funny Lines

 30th November 2024

Dear Band People,

From your ad here I can see that you’re looking for some funny lines to add to your performance. Good on you for that. A concert should be an experience that people don’t forget, and the more you can bring to the stage the better.

Anyway, I guess payment should be the first point. I mean, the one you can afford is the best one to hire. If you have money and are well funded cash money is an option but what a band has to offer me is often a shout-out or recognition which would be more valuable the more popular your band becomes.

If you want to get your name out there you need a YouTube channel and that’s where you’d be posting music videos, performances, and interviews with the band. We would work out something involving you thanking me in a video, me appearing in a music video, or even conducting an interview about an upcoming event.

As for my experience, I wrote comedy news for a YouTube channel called Absurd TV for years but as they never gave me full IMDB credit I stopped. I run six blogs and six YouTube channels where I often make comedy videos and posts. I used to draw comics but I fell out of the practice.

Look, dropping a few jokes, that’s just no big deal. Anyone can do it, and I’m surprised you’re looking for a writer. As far as being part of your success, well, that’s a lot harder.

 

Best,

 

Richard Leland Neal