Myanmar Quakes and Trump tariffs

It was at the end of March on the 28th when a powerful 7.7 rs earthquake struck Myanmar and caused devastation. I felt pity for all those people that lost loved ones and their homes; in the game of pool, sinking the black ball 8 is game over and the same is true of earthquakes. Anything close to 8 in the Richter scale will devastate the nation around it, the ground is leaping and undulating with too much force for strong buildings to stand up. A near-8 earthquake will topple the strongest of buildings. It will spare wooden bungalows and tents but anything with supporting walls will topple over.  

There were two thoughts in my mind around the time of the earthquake. One was short breaks and the other was trump tariffs. I get what president Donald Trump is doing, if there is a bigger import tariff, it would make imported goods less competitive against domestic produced goods and it would pressure companies to move some of their factories into the united states to avoid the import tax altogether. He is looking to create lots of jobs in the long term. It is a very big risk and bad news for us. I'm in two minds about his decision, other countries will do it back to him and he may cause everything to become too expensive. I don't know what is going to happen, I try not to think about it too much. 

The other thing is short breaks, I like to look at all the coastal towns in Britain and see if there is a good deal available somewhere. The price of a train journey in Britain isn't based on distance but what tools you have available. If you have a good rail card and use the internet to book early that you will get a much better deal. All the different train operators have different perks, some give you a discount for return journeys, others let you use more than one rail card. There is no consistency. If you travel 50km, it will vary a lot depending on the time you get on the train and your perks. The possibilities are endless because you can use a bus service to get into a discounted zone so you can use a mixture of different transport services. 

Barter Hero

 I imagined a future where sentient machines decided that mankind needs only one religion so they stop being prejudiced and violent towards each other. The machine brings all the thoughts together from all the holy books in the world. Every Scripture and every religion is one in this world and the sentient machine makes itself into a God. The machine builds a giant talking statue that preaches all the scriptures and everyone must accept the talking statue as their God. Some people refuse to embrace the global religion so their bank accounts are frozen. People get frozen out of all transactions if they don't convert to this religion. The banks were adding more and more stipulations to keep their accounts open and people felt it was unfair, this time they have gone too far. You can't buy anything or get paid without a bank account so being frozen out means abject poverty. You can't even sell anything without a bank account because cash has been abolished.

Along comes a hero, the Barter man. A man that gets by without transactions, he trades stuff with stuff to get stuff. He has one paper clip in his hand, he knows someone needs it to press a reset button on their computer so he swaps the paper clip for a pen. Then he finds someone that needs a pen and swaps for a torch. Someone needs a torch so he swaps it for a drill. Then he swaps the drill for a bar stool, then he finds someone that really wants a bar stool so they swap it for a steam punk lamp. Finally someone gives him visa gift cards with £500 credit on them to get the trendy lamp. In one day the Barter genius traded a paper clip and finished with £500. The key to the man's success was knowing what everyone needs. He can get by very well in this terrible world until the machines start marking followers and killing non compliant people. 

Consistent little daisies

The world is changing a lot, we're turning into a cashless society; a world where the banks can decide they don't like you and sanction you from trade, you can't buy or sell anything because you need a bank account. Its OK now but in the future, people will have their bank accounts frozen because of their views and opinions. They won't be able to buy anything or get paid from their jobs. Day by day, greedy selfish people will turn our world into a place where it is impossible to be happy. We could end up in a dystopia.

In this world where people come into your life but leave and the rules change, there are a few things that stay the same. In spring time the Daisies emerge from the grass. I see them on the grass verges by the curb, I see them in the lawns at the park, I see them on common greens and grassy nulls. I see the little flowers with paper white petals and fluffy yellow centres. Daisies are consistency, they're a reliable attribute of our world, something that doesn't change. I must thank the sweet lord for these little gifts I see all around me. The morning rising sun, daisies in the grass, fresh air and the stars in the sky. 

Build Away

 I recently noticed that our leader Keir Starmer was involved in negotiations with other nations to form a resistance against Russia and to help Ukraine. This annoyed me a bit because they were cutting funds for many things like transport subsidies and elderly fuel allowance to try and balance the budget. If we were that far gone then what help can we be? Doesn't defence support cost a lot of money? I hate the Ukraine Russia war but I think we shouldn't get involved. The name Keir means darkness in the old Celtic languages, the old people are turning off their lights a lot so the name fits. I'm not involved so there is no point thinking about it too much. I'm just an ordinary man. 

I downloaded the Minecraft game on my Nintendo over the weekend. It is the first time I played Minecraft. I like computer games where you build stuff, especially if they have a sandbox mode with no resource limits. I don't like violence in computer games, I like creative games that let you make things. In the olden days I would play roller coaster tycoon and build beautiful theme parks. I was surprised that Minecraft supports multi play split-screen. 

Its nice seeing Daisy Flowers growing out of the grass, our world changes but they stay the same every spring they appear. 

Spring Time

It is Spring time now, you can tell, activists have started climbing up stuff and gluing themselves to things, "Yawn". It would be nice if they opened their minds a bit and  considered the other side of the story. Narrow minded people that only embrace one view. It will officially be spring after the 20th of march but I saw Daisy flowers sprouting out of the ground and the temperature rose above 10 degrees Celsius during the day. 

It looks like NASA has been preparing to go back to the moon; back in the '70s it was all about the Apollo missions, I wasn't born then. Now it is about the Artemis missions. They're building space launch vehicles with similar power to the Saturn 5 but more modular. There are separate booster rockets and the main rocket parts are reusable. They don't need to rebuild a whole space ship every time they launch. The cost is everything these days. Everything needs a cheap solution. Those astronauts are very brave, travelling to space is very dangerous.  

What February 2025 Means To Me

 It was very cold in February and always overcast. There was very little sunlight. A sad month it was, a member of the family passed away; he wasn't old really. He has a young son as well. I feel pity for the boy. What can I do, I can only make sure I'm healthy and hope I live long enough to leave behind an aged family that feels prepared for my passing. I don't smoke, I drink a glass of Whisky twice a year and nothing else, I don't take drugs and I eat set meals 2 or 3 times a day, if I pass away early it would be down to bad luck. I downloaded an old computer game I used to play often called Roller Coaster Tycoon classic edition. I thought to myself I should always make time for leisure because I don't know how long I have in this world. I don't even know if I will still be alive tomorrow. Luck can run out and your time can be up at any time. In the olden days, text based games with still images were also quite popular, they had games like Myst and Kings Quest. I liked those games, they worked well on any computer because it was never about the graphics, it was all about solving the puzzle. I think software publishers still make modern text based games even today for those that appreciate those things.

I saw some altercations between politicians on the news, it has nothing to do with me; I hope they can peacefully settle their differences in the near future. I tried to think about the bigger things in this world. I looked up at the sky at night a few times every day and  most of the planets are still about on the horizon together, that's cool. I could see Mars, it looks like a pink star when it is low on the horizon or an orange speck when it is high up in the sky. I also could see Venus quite well, it was especially bright in recent days. It's amazing to think how big the Universe is. 

In the Air

I noticed there is a lot of air rage these days. Passengers have angry physical outbursts on planes.  I'm an ordinary guy, but I understand what is happening. The last 3 flights I took, I was very angry; I restrained my anger, all you would see is my expressionless poker face, you wouldn't know I felt very angry but I was. I felt like I didn't have any personal space and the seat in-front of me reclined without warning and pushed my tray table into my stomach slightly. I had no personal space, not even an armrest to myself. I also noticed many of the long distance flights had been dropped permanently since the pandemic so I was forced to take connecting flights. The trouble with connecting flights is you get worried you'll miss the flight if your first flight is delayed. To cut a long story short, you feel like the air line is taking the piss out of you. To top it off, I noticed they were giving out gin and tonic and wine drinks; it is as if the airline wants the passengers to fight. Take away their personal space, make them stressed and get them drunk, a good mix. They should take away the undersold first class, set the lighting to pink and provide seating that lets everyone have their own personal space, everyone has an arm rest to themselves. They will lose some of their seats but there will be less unsold seats and you could put special boxes on unsold seats to add to the air freight of the plane.  

I learn something new every day, today I learned that most of your taste comes from smell. You can trick yourself into thinking you're drinking flavoured water when you're actually drinking plain tap water.  There is a product that capitalises on this human trait, air Up. It is a drink bottle that feeds a scent in the air to your nose and makes you feel like the water you're drinking is flavoured. 

very clever.