Nothing Makes Sense

Very often I find there are no straightforward routes in this world, every turn leads to more confusion and every pathway goes nowhere. 

I went to get a bus and the bus driver told me a one way ticket costs £3 and a return ticket costs £7.50. That didn't make sense, if it costs £1.50 more to get a return ticket then why are they selling it, they should just sell the one way ticket for both directions. Even the driver warned me because some people will buy a return ticket thinking it would be cheaper. 

Everything is like that but at least there is something I see every day and it doesn't change. I see the daisies sprouting out of the grass verges by the roads and they're always the same. I don't touch them, just admire them from a short distance as I pass by. They have little yellow center and white petals. A simple little flower that emerges in spring and stays around till autumn. 

I was reading through the NASA blogs and saw that the James Webb space telescope was observing a planet going around a star that had died, the star went through a red giant phase as it ran out of fuel and turned into a white dwarf, a dim dead star that just barely glows. I thought to myself such an event could transform a planet, a planet like Jupiter could have all its gasses striped away exposing a rocky core and it could become like a terrestrial planet or it could become bigger. Perhaps a planet the size of earth crashed into Jupiter millions of years ago and the material is still there in the centre of the planet. 

We know so little.  

Andy Burnham

I recently learned that Andy Burnham will replace Kier Starmer as the leader of the United Kingdom. I don't know much, all I know is he intends to move some of the administrative departments to Manchester and he wants to develop the rest of the country evenly. In a way I agree with that, I think there is too much going on in London and the rest of the island is being neglected. When they opened cross rail, I thought to myself there is already two train lines going to Heathrow, why do they need three? Places like reading and Swindon with half a million people living in them don't even have a metro rail service. They just have a national railway station and buses. 

We are between England games in the world cup and this is what's happening over here. Getting ready for a new leader. 

I was just thinking about how I could one day make a tilt ball arcade machine. I don't have the time or space to have such a hobby. It is the one type of arcade machine I think I could make. Perhaps I could make a little one first. 

Sometimes all that is left is imagination. 

The Mind of Man

I thought it would be a good idea to bring one of my thoughts to life on here so people in the future can see what many men are thinking about. Every day we are judged depending on how we are dressed, if you wear a nice pressed shirt and neat trousers, people will think you're a good person or a nice person, if you wear a t-shirt that is old and starting the fade, people will think you're a dirty or stupid person, they will think your personality is lame. It's a shame I have to buy new clothes every week to keep a status quo image. That is the way society is, they judge superficial things. Small talk is dead and there is a constant threat of being accused of being a creep. 

As for me 

I just think about all the things I can make if I had the time and the space. I was thinking about a tilt ball arcade machine, an arcade machine where you use levers to tilt the surface of an obstacle course for a small plastic ball. The goal would be to get the ball through the obstacle course without falling down the end game chute. 

It's something I think I can make because I can visualise how all the parts work. You would have a controller stick that is attached to a lever, the lever would connect to a pivot and pull a rod that moves the surface of the table that itself is resting on a hinge. If the pivot was low down then the lever would move with less force but have a smaller range of movements, if the pivot was higher up, the table surface would move more but it would feel more heavy. The key would be to find the sweet spot, a point were the lever doesn't feel too heavy to move but it still moves enough to control the ball reasonably well. 

I write posts on here very often because I don't need any space and I used my traveling and standing time to write the posts. I draw the image at home straight after lunch while I wait for my coffee to cool down and quickly scan it. 

If I was loaded like some of those rich spoilt brats, I would be more happy than them because I could have a workshop and build things in there. Perhaps as a room in a big house or a shed. Even this low level hobby brings me joy, I don't need other people's approval; it is nice that my thoughts pass into other people's minds around the world though. 

World Cup Anomaly

I was checking the fixtures for the knockout stages for the world cup and noticed it didn't add up and didn't make sense, they expanded the number of 4 team groups to 12 and they added a 32 team knockout stage. If there is twelve groups then only 24 would pass through, where were the other 8 teams coming from?

I turned to my ai friends to clarify what had happened. The ai explained to me that fifa wanted to add an extra layer of the knockout stage of the cup but they didn't want 16 groups so they would let the best 8 relegated teams pass through the group stage, this means some of the groups would have an extra team passing through. 

England are playing dr Congo on Wednesday, they came 3rd in their group so normally they would have been relegated from the next portion of the tournament but they are one of the 8 teams that played well and got enough points to squeeze through the back door. It will be an interesting game. 

I watched the Panama and England game on Saturday night. England were taking some long shots from the edge of the goal zone but the Panama defence was tight so in the second half they focused on keeping possession on their side of the pitch and shooting when there was an opening. To cut a long story short, they got their act together in the second half of the game and won 2 goals to 0. 

With an extra layer of the tournament to add a week of football to the world cup, things will be more interesting. 

Near 8 again

I learnt recently that there was another near 8 rickter earthquake; this time it was in Venezuela. I think it was 7.5 on the rickter scale. As you get close to 8, the power of the earthquake becomes too extreme, it can topple the strongest of buildings. The whole ground rumbles and shakes hard. This is the second time it happened this year, there was one in the Philippines and now Venezuela. If there is a third one in the year then it would show they're getting more and more frequent. At the moment there is about 2 near-eights every year. (I think I am the only person that calls them near-eights). 

I think the weather is affecting the fault lines, it is raining more often in various places and this may be lubricating the rocks so they can slide past eachother. 

I feel like the earth itself is reacting to the evil of mankind. It is like our wickedness is making the whole planet react like a conscious-being feeling sick. 

While this was happening, I was thinking what I could do if I had a workshop. I have no space time or money for such a hobby but I thought I could build a games console that doubles as a fake window. It would be a freestanding structure with a window inside it and lights that make it look like it is a real window. With the push of a button a roller blind would pop out the top and roll down as a screen with a projector in the window cavity. The fake window would have overlays behind the plexiglass panels to show a pleasant terrain and there could be yellowish and red L.E.D. lights to make fake daylight. There are so many spoilt rich people that feel sad, perhaps they just need a hobby that pushes their skills to the limits, a hobby that is very difficult and engaging. 

Heat Wave

It was very hot today, all the roads and concrete structures were giving off heat, they were storing it up and releasing it and it was humid. I can't help but think what it would be like if our homes were partially below ground and insulated from the elements, both the cold and heat. 

If the majority of your home was laid out as a basement with a similar ratio to an iceberg then it would be cool in the summer and hot in the winter. When you see an ice berg in the ocean, most of it is under water. 

There would only be a small portion of your home sticking out of the ground, the lobby and entrance. Everything else would be below the ground. You wouldn't know of it was raining, snowing or windy. Perhaps there would be some fake windows that always show nice weather, windows with a screen or lights behind them. 

UK Leader Resigns

Yesterday the Leader of the United Kingdom, Kier Starmer resigned as prime minister. Most the experts think Andy Burnham will take his place. There were a lot of signs Kier was going to resign, his party was losing a lot of seats in local council elections, the secretary of defence resigned because he thought the budget amendments were too tight to run his department and even his own party wanted him to step down. 

keir Starmer was the leader of the labour party, they tend to be public sector or civil servants like teachers and lawyers. Conservative party  tend to be business orientated like bank employees and business directors. There is some lee way between the two groups but they're both a fish out of water when running a county because it is a different landscape to navigate. 

Andy Burnham was the Mayor of Manchester so his role was similar to running a country. Running a city and running a country are similar I think, just on a different scale. Perhaps he will have better luck. 

I feel like we have been trying different things now, like we're navigating a labyrinth in the dark and every time we reach a dead end, the leader steps down. It has been like that for about 10 years. Will we find the exit to stagnation? I don't know.