What 2020 means to me

In the year 2020, a lethal type of Corona virus emerged from China called Covid19, it spread around the world and caused a pandemic infection. Many countries were forced into lockdown to slow the virus down, this caused a global recession and many people lost their jobs, others were killed by the virus. Later in the year a colossal swarm of locusts emerged in the African continent and consumed many crops in North Africa and the middle east. Then a warehouse full of Ammonia nitrate exploded in Beirut and destroyed half the city, the blast was so powerful that it generated a small earth quake and mushroom cloud. In the autumn, Azerbaijan and Armenia went to war because of a dispute over  mountainous territories near their borders, Russia was determined to get them to stop because the two countries are close to them and they need neighbours at peace to trade better. The wilderness of many American states burned up because the air was a bit drier and more windy than normal so careless fires got out of control. Apart from all that, 2020 was ok. 

Despite the lockdown, I witnessed many protests and civil unrest throughout the world. Black lives matter and conspiracy theory marches and even anti regime protests were very frequent. Statues of evil bastards around the world were toppled and moved into museums. There was a large blasphemy protest throughout the middle east because France showed a gaint scetch of their prophet which is very offensive to their beliefs, that was accompanied by a mass boycott of French products. 

It was in the last bit of 2020 that Jo Biden was elected the president of America and a post Brexit trade deal was agreed with the UK and the EU, the British Covid19 changed slightly and became better at spreading by 70%.I have no idea how we will cope with this new variant of covid19 and I don't know what will happen as the brexit agreement comes into force and I have no control over it so I choose not to think about it much. 

While all the chaos was happening in the world, my son Jacob was taking his first steps and soon mastered walking in the summer of 2020. As the year went on he learnt to run and talk a bit. Then he learned many skills we all take for granted like opening doors and crouching to pick up things from the floor. He was a very active toddler and luckily he was too young to remember seeing all the tension that the Pandemic was causing. 

Now it is 2021, I don't ever want to hear the word Brexit again and I want to see an end to the Pandemic, I want a peaceful and happy 2021 for all the people on Earth.  I have no agenda and no desire to support any political group. I just tell the truth as far as know. 

I am grateful that I have good health and a job so far. I pray for a happy life and peace. I pray for more progress and less stress. 

Virtual Reality ISS

Earlier today I used virtual reality to visit the international space station commonly known as ISS. I noticed that it is bigger than I thought it was, it is the biggest man made object in space as far as I know. I also learned that there is no up or down in the ISS, the ceiling, floor and walls all contain intruments and consol screens. You only have up or down in a place where there strong gravity like on earth. The purpose of the ISS is to carry out experiments in zero gravity or the vacuum of space. A common experiment would be a rig or drug that may stop the human body wasting away in zero gravity; the human body deteriorates in zero gravity so long term travel to other planets is impossible at the moment because of the health issues. The modules have air locks so they can place objects in space and leave them out there for a while on a noose to see what happens. They even have telescopes on there. There are countless experiments that can be done in space that are impossible on earth. 

What was the cost to me? Nothing, I already have a phone and a generic VR phone holder with adjustable plastic lenses. I think the VR phone holder costs close to £10 (ten loafs of bread) but I can't remember the exact price I paid for it. I used the Google expeditions app to view it. 

The ISS is very spacious and full of experiments, interesting place to visit in virtual reality. 

Cold night

Jacob, my son. 

You still hate eating fruits, as far as I know there is not one type of fruit that you will eat, I don't know why. You run very fast now, very much like a preschool kid would run; I often feel nervous when you run because I feel like you may fall over. You know the names of many animals like cows and horses and sheep. 

I often wonder what you will be like when you are older. I wonder if you will be happy or sad. I always listen son, always. I dream of a day when we can sit together at the table and eat a nice traditional English roast dinner, play cards and chess or something like that afterwards and you would tell me things you have learned recently in the news or from a book. 

December Storm

Earlier I drove through the apron of the December boxing day Storm, it was quite challenging because the strong wind pushes my car very hard. When you are on the duel carriage way it is worse because you are already moving very fast so it makes the wind much worse. 

I wonder where the storm will be when I'm heading home; will I still be under the apron of the storm or in the thick of it. It is rattling the roof of my work place at the moment and dumping loads of rain. In the past it would have been a blizzard because the cold air would have frozen the droplets into ice flakes. 

Let's hope I can get home safely. 

Trucks and Viruses

It is Christmas 2020 and the British Covid19 virus has changed slightly back in autumn and become better at spreading by 70%, they think that the surface of the viruses are better at sticking to human cells and getting pulled in. This caused the rest of the world to block commuters and goods flowing in and out of the UK to try and contain the new virus so it can't spread to other places. As far as I know, the new vaccine still works on the virus for now. 

This new episode of quarantine has caused many truck drivers to be trapped on the roads near the ports so there are truck drivers that just want to go home but they are trapped at Dover and Calais. I imagine they have spent Christmas in their cabs just sitting there waiting to be released from their duties. I thought being a manager of a shop was tough. 

Now we are facing the 2020 boxing day Christmas storm. I don't know what it is going to do, all I know is the winds will move at close to 70mph. I will be driving through this storm to get to my Job tonight. Let's see what happens. 

Super Virus stack

The last few days the British government were practising using the M20 (freeway) as a giant car park because a no deal Brexit means every truck must be checked, this would cause massive delays. At the same time, the UK covid19 virus mutated slightly. The surface of the British Covid19 virus is better at sticking to the membrane of human cells so it infects people more quickly. Normally when my country improves something, I feel proud; this time I'm not. 

Wouldn't it be easier if we all just had a large sheet of polyurethane and wore it over our bodies like ghost? Wouldn't it be cheaper than paying people 80% of their income for not working? I'm sure it would cost less than £1 for each unit. Maybe I'm just on the wrong page. 

Toffee coin man

In past Christmas', we would have a large tub of chocolate treats, there would be the strawberry fondants, cream drums and the fudges. Eventually there would be two types of sweet left in the tub, the toffee coins and the toffee fingers. Both of them had a yellow wrapper, a bit like the yellow jacket of a wasp; warning you that they can be unpleasant when handled. The toffee coins and fingers were unpopular because they were hard like plastic and gave you the sensation like you were going to break your teeth. These sweets were made for me. I didn't just put them in my mouth, I would put them in my hand and leave them there until they went soft. I used the heat from my hands to soften the rigid toffee coins, then I would put the softened sweet in my mouth, a softened toffee is totally different from a room temperature one, it goes from being the most irritating sweet to the nicest one. 

Christmas Lockdown

The Covid19 pandemic infection is still here. My part of Britain has returned to lockdown, this means I can't go into other people's homes and I can't go into non essential shops and businesses premises. Christmas is written off, this time last year we had a snap election with the purpose of breaking the Brexit deadlock. Now we have a lockdown to slow the spread of the Covid19 Corona virus. 

This Christmas I won't go to my parents home for Christmas lunch, I won't go to any party, I will just sit at home and work and wait for the Pandemic to go away. Last year it rained almost every day throughout the whole of winter, now we are dealing with a deadly infection that is slowly mutating into a virus that spreads more quickly. 

There is nothing more to say, we can only wait and pray. There is nothing left to do.  

Jacob & Home Harvest

A charity recently sent resources to feed British families. Jacob Reese Mog criticized the actions of the charity claiming it was a political stunt. He looks like Egon from the movie 'Ghost busters' so I forgive him for saying that. I don't like having angry feelings towards other people. 

I wondered if there was a way to grow your own food in a box. Plants need light and water to grow, I wondered if there was a box that could give light and get water from the air for plants so they can grow. I wonder if the light from L.E.D s is enough to sustain a plant, lights that are fed by batteries or a USB cable. They would be weaker than the sunlight but they could shine continuously and only emit the light that the plants use, perhaps ultra violet and green L.E.D s could be used. Perhaps I could put a small potato in there and after a month have many potatoes and use less than one killowatt hour of electricity. There could be 30 boxes, so every day I would get one small meal. Perhaps a whole wall could be filled with these small boxes. 

Just a thought, unless I try and make one. 

Bubbles

Soap Bubbles are so beautiful, they contain coloured smears of magenta, turquoise, yellow and all the soft colours in between. There are thousands of tiny details inside the bubbles. Soap bubbles have a thin skin and try to pull themselves into a perfect sphere but wobble slightly as they fall through the air. I see a struggle in the soap bubble, the soap bubbles are trying to be as small as possible and that is what makes them beautiful because by pulling itself into a sphear with a thin skin and being rounded is what makes the light rays separate I think. 

Because of the Pandemic, guy Fawkes celebrations were cancelled for me and my family. I dream of a time in the future when I would have a guy Fawkes party and use lasers and bubbles instead of fireworks and bombfire. I imagine turning on a bubble machine from a window on the floor above and hundreds of bubbles flow down to the ground and I would have many lasers shining everywhere around. 

Shimmering Road

It is the simple things in this world and all the mysteries that bring me joy. Today I was walking outside and saw the street lights reflecting off the wet road, it looked very quaint to me. There was also a cool winter breeze blowing on my face. The air was so fresh, I treasure the moment in time when I am absent minded and just observing the beauty in all the simple things in this world. 

There are so many mysteries to observe, paradoxes, fiction, true life mysteries and mysteries about space, historical mysteries. If there is one thing for me to be grateful for, it is all the beauty in plain sight and learning of all the mysteries in this world.  

Modest day

Jacob, my son. I'm in my 30s, I'm not in my youth but not middle aged, it is somewhere between the two. When I reached my 30s, I noticed changes in my body. If I sit still and not speak for more than 40 minutes, I fall asleep like a panda. I'm a bit slower than I used to be and my memory takes a bit longer, I tell myself that if I do lots of exercise then I will undo all the changes a bit and regain my youth. If you see your father exercising on a machine, it is not be bigger or stronger but to slow down the aging process and possibly to reverse it.

During this month there has been some very big changes in you, you have learned how to open doors and you like to stand in front of the washing machine when it is on a spin cycle and dance in sync with the vibrations from the spinning drum. When we take a selfie on the phone camera, you copy the shutter sound effect that the camera makes, very cute. 

plastic fantastic

Wouldn't it be nice if there was a country that said let me have all your plastic waste to the world. If thousands of barges came to the country full of plastic then they could grind it up and mix it with cement powder and make many concrete blocks with ground up plastic as the aggregate instead of sand then sell it back to the rest of the world. That would be so cool. 

They could call it placrete, it would have the insulation and water resistance of plastic combined with the fireproof high strength of cement stone. Not sure it would work though, it is something to try one day.  They could also make it into bricks. They could be baked nicely to melt the plastic grains to the ceramic particles. Plus they could use it for the streets and foot paths.  

Romanian Aluminium Mystery

I like mysteries, both in fiction and real. One mystery that has no answer is the Romanian Aluminium mystery. 

What happened is a chunk of Aluminium was found buried in Romania and they think it was forged tens of thousands of years ago. The problem is we learned how to extract aluminium from its ore just recently in the 1820s I think, around the time when we were making slavery illegal in the UK at the start of the industrial revolution. It is very hard to extract aluminium from its ore because heat and electricity have to be combined on the ore to free it. 

Some people think the aluminium fragment came from an alien star ship thousands of years ago. Others think it came from meteorite. Some people think it was wedged into the ground when a German bomber plane crashed at the site but no one really knows. 

Scooters and VR

I have no control over what is happening around me, I have no control of the Pandemic or Brexit and I have no control over businesses closing down and thousands of people losing their job. I'm just a krill in the tide being pushed along by the waters of chaos. I drink my coffee and do all the little routines I do every day and try to be optimistic. 

I have some control of my mind and where my attention is. I like to look at electric scooters and VR headsets on YouTube and shopping sites. I like the idea of having a powered vehicle that costs almost nothing to run. Bikes cost nothing to run but they are not powered vehicles, e scooters are powered, they have electric motors.  I am amazed by the range they have, some of them can travel over 20km on one charge. Some can fold up very small and be carried on to public transport. 

I think VR will take off when they make walker devices that let you walk without moving, like treadmills but for virtual reality so you can walk around in other worlds without bumping into walls. In virtual reality you can go anywhere, you can walk on the moon or in a fantasy world. If you walk in virtual reality without moving it can make you feel nauseous. I learned that from experience. 

Nothing but fog

I wonder what would happen if an unstoppable force acted on an unmovable object. I wouldn't like to be nearby, a very big explosion perhaps. 

There is lots of fog everywhere and it is cold. I have nothing to say. When I was a kid I watched 'Around the world in 80 days with Willy Fog'. Well, you wouldn't see it if it was foggy. 

Vaccine Ready

The UK government has approved the safety of the Covid19 vaccine and have been accused by other governments of cutting corners with safety and testing. What I would ask is where is their evidence? They don't know what the testing agency was doing, perhaps our testing agency were more rigorous with their testing than theirs. 

I think they will give the vaccine to the elderly first because they're at risk the most. Then to people with diabetes or asthma and eventually to everyone else if they want it. 

My view is, diseases like Polio and Small pox has been eradicated by vaccines so we know they work. It is nice when a disease is attacked by our immune system straight away when it enters the body. It is excellent when our immune cells know what attack straight away. 

driving day

Jacob, my son. I think that by the time you read this post, cars and trucks would drive themselves. I think people would drink more alcohol in your  time because in this time, people abstain from drinking alcohol because of their driving routine. 

Driving is very annoying to me. Here in the UK our government decided they would add a second stop line at traffic light junctions for bikes so they can get ahead of the cars. They also consider driving over the first stop line to be jumping the lights and would punish drivers by adding 3 penalty points to their driving license and giving them a £100 fine if they are caught. I know this rule but many drivers don't and they get annoyed with me. I would be waiting at a red light and watch a car in the next lane drive over the first stop-line just behind the bike stop line so most of the car is inside the bike box, and the car behind me would be flashing their lights and gesturing me to move forward, they are trying to school me about my driving I guess. All I can do is ignore them. 

Yesterday was particularly bad, a Volkswagen golf driver actually drove around my car and into the bike box and he had to drive over the curb for pedestrians to do it and then he gave me a look like he was schooling me about driving. When cars drive themselves then all this annoying nonsense will end. 

Eat Yourself

I recently learned that a laboratory had managed to grow human cells from a living human and build up enough of them to make a burger. The host of the cells wasn't harmed. 

They can scrape your inner cheek with a stick and take some living cells, then they grow millions of the cells in a nutrient solution until there is enough of them to make a burger. I think that technically it is cannibalism but they claim you would still be a vegetarian because no 'being' was killed to make the burger. Not sure I would try it myself.

All I would say is they should add peri peri lemon and herb sauce and halloumi cheese with a sesame seed bun to compliment the burger, and remember all the trimmings, iceberg lettuce and gherkin slice. 

Tilted floating vehicle

One thing I am greatful for is freedom to create, If I was living in poverty then I wouldn't even be able to create this blog because I wouldn't have a phone and internet connection. 

One idea that pops up in my head often is the thought that perhaps there is an easier way to create a magnetic levitation transport vehicle like a small tram. I think that if an array of permanent magnets were nested in a frame at a 45° angle and sheets of graphite were placed on a rig above the magnets also at 45° angle then they would be pushed upwards. I drew what was inside my mind. 

The two triangular shaped structures on the sides are rows of magnets that are 'North polarised' the triangular shaped rig floating at end is graphite plates that are tilted at 45° angle. The graphite mirrors the magnetic fields that pass into it and cause it to be pushed away. There are two forces acting on the rig in the middle, gravity pulling it down and the magnetic fields pushing it away at 45° angle. The two forces cancel eachother out at the edge of the magnetic fields, so it just floats in the middle and never quite touches the surface. 

The idea is so simple that I feel like I could almost build a model myself. The idea is that some of the friction and grinding is eliminated so the parts don't wear down over time. The rig never touches the surfaces that it floats over so there is no metal grinding on metal like the wheels of a train. A linear motor in the tracks is enough to propel it forwards and it has no friction to overcome in wheel bearings because it has no wheels. The vehicle would make no sound and the ride would be very smooth because there is no physical contact between the surfaces. I just need space and tools to build a small rig and test it out myself, if it doesn't work then I would learn something from the failure that is the beauty of science, even failure can be constructive because you learn what doesn't work. 

Back to the Future

In the movie 'back to the future', there is a scene where Marty started to fade away because he was causing his parents to lose romantic interest by accident so he was preventing himself from being born. 

Isn't that the grandfather paradox? If you travel in time and cause yourself not to exist then you can't travel back in time to stop your existence because you don't exist before you travelled back in time.  

If I go into a time machine and assassinate myself ten years in the past then how do I travel back in time? I died ten years ago so I can't assassinate myself because I'm already dead from the assassination ten years ago. If I did go back in time and assassinate myself then what would happen? Would I stop the event from happening by being dead?

I don't know. 

Metallic Gold

At this present time, the old Jamaica brand of ginger beer drinks has a metallic gold appearance. Ginger beer has no alcohol in it, it is just a soft drink that tastes like ginger and sugar. 

I was wondering what a room would look like if I used to the same metallic gold colour has wall paper. Very bright I would imagine. 

Cold Day

Jacob, my son. We have been through a lot this year. I would compare this year to boat in a storm, the crew of the boat would feel relief when it is over and just be happy they are still afloat. I keep my chin up for happier times when everything has settled down and there is no pandemic. I can't really write all the things down here because it is a public blog but I can say we have been through a difficult time. I try and be positive about the future. 

I hope to one day show you the games our ancestors played. They would play chess, checkers, dominoes and various card cames like blackjack and solitaire. There are a few I played as a kid, Scrabble, connect a 4, Jenga and ludo, games like that. It wouldn't be hard for you to beat me at chess, my old Nokia non android phone beat me quite often. I imagined just sitting at a small table and playing the games our ancestors played after dinner on a weekend or holiday period. 

Pompeii Bodies

Earlier in the week I learned that two new Pompeii bodies were discovered. What had happened is about two thousand years ago, Vesuvius volcano erupted and buried the city of Pompeii in hot ash. The bodies of the people that died there left an imprint in the ash that hardend, their flesh rotted away leaving just the bones and the imprint. 

Some bright person recently discovered that you could pour concrete or plaster into the hollow space around the bones and get a cast of the imprint left by the dead person so you could see what they looked like at the moment they died. You can see the pain in the face of a person that died nearly two thousand years ago. The casts are very detailed, you can see what clothing they were wearing and the expression on their face and things that were near them. 

One of the two men that were found was dressed in rags and had flattened disk vertebrae in their spine so they think he was a slave, the other man was dressed in expensive clothing and was older then the young slave, they think he was the slave owner. Both men looked like they were dying in a sudden and painful way. 

Every buried person that was over 50 years old would have been around at the time of Jesus and it is possible that they met Jesus if they went to ancient Roman occupied Israel and Judah. 

To me the Pompeii body casts and preserved city are amazing. 

Music at work

I think that many companies are playing music at work to help colleges work better. In my view, a lot of modern music doesn't sound too good, the singer sounds like they are in pain and they are singing about a regret or something they want to do to someone or something like that. 

I find that the best music to play would be music without lyrics like computer game music and TV background music. There is one music I always wanted because it makes me feel focused and slightly quicker, it is the background music that plays during the TV show 'how it's made' from the discovery channel, they play techno music in the background and it sounds good to me. One particular episode is very good, it is the camera lenses one; they show how camera lenses are made, the sound track is very good in that episode. I never find the music from the 'How it's Made' TV show, I searched the internet and only ever found the Theme music itself but not the techno music that plays when they are in the factories. I hope I find those tracks one day. 

I think some very effective work music would be.

Super hangon game music 

Sonic the hedgehog 

Super Mario Bros 

Mario Kart 

Zelda music, especially from the twilight princes game. 

Wherever I post this article I will post the music so you can hear for yourself. 

So Cold

Well, the British home secretary has been accused of bullying some of the civil servants. I don't know anything about it, I don't know the details, the rules or the truth. 

What I do know is carbon dioxide freezes solid at -78.5 °c at earth's atmospheric pressure, I was reading about it on Wikipedia while I lay in bed to sleep. They call frozen carbon dioxide 'Dry Ice' because it turns back into carbon dioxide when it thaws without going into a liquid stage. Dry ice has many uses, it can make food freeze so fast that it has no ice crystals in it and would thaw without any side effects. Dry ice can also be used as bait to trap mosquitos, the cabon dioxide gas given off by the thawing ice attracts them. Dry ice isn't magnetic, frozen oxygen is. 

I also learned that dry ice is about 50% heavier than water and also would sink in liquid carbon dioxide. What I don't know is what would happen if they froze oxygen and carbon dioxide as a mixture. What would they call it? Would the ice mixture be magnetic? Would it behave differently? I imagine it would be hard to make mixed ice because the freezing points of the two gasses are very different, the carbon dioxide would freeze long before the oxygen so it would be very hard to mix them together. Perhaps that is why they don't bother naming the hypothetical ice. 

Helium Frost

I asked my phone what chemical has the lowest freezing point and it told me that it is Helium. Helium doesn't freeze until it it is crushed under very high pressure. It could be minus 250 °c and that wouldn't be enough. 

Now I am wondering if liquid helium would float in its own solution like water ice does. It makes you wonder what all the gases would do in their liquid state and frozen states? What properties does liquid carbon dioxide have and what about dry ice, frozen carbon dioxide. Then there is oxygen, oxygen ice and liquid nitrogen and nitrogen ice. A whole world for me to discover. 

Screw you

I watched a video of a guy trying out the new Rasberry PI 400, a single board PC integrated into a keyboard. At one point he unscrewed the device to look at the circuit board inside. Normally I would think that they shouldn't screw around, I don't care about how it looks inside but this time was different. I was amazed at the simple solution to stopping the microprocessor from overheating. What they did is they got a corrugated sheet of metal and had it pressing against the microchip, the sheet of metal takes up roughly the same surface area as the keyboard itself. They cleverly used all the free space inside the machine to house a large heat sink that conducts the heat away from the chip. The man was able to run some very demanding software programs on the system and the microprocessor didn't go very much above 50°c so there was no fan or any moving parts that would wear down over time. 

To me this was amazing on many levels. If that device was made at the time I was born, it would be called a supercomputer, it was doing things the computers in the past couldn't do.  It is also amazing to me that they found away to stop the microprocessor from overheating without using fluid pumps or fans. There was no moving parts inside the computer. It is also amazing that they are putting a whole system on a Chip, a single micro processor was doing things an entire ATX pc box would normally do. Everything in this world is getting smarter, light bulbs, computers, speakers, phones. Even the roads are getting smart, they are putting sensors in the roads to help reconfigure traffic lights in the best way. Microprocessors do more now than ever before and they are everywhere. 

2020 Autumn War

From September until today, Armenia and Azerbaijan have been fighting over disputed land on their borders. I believe the problem is a modern one because no one cared about the borders in mountains, they were always fuzzy, they would say someware over the mountains is another country. Things are different now because both nations are industrialised so they see the mountain's mineral wealth as an asset to be obtained. Perhaps a modern problem requires a modern solution, perhaps the two states should allow foreign mining companies from Russia and Turkey to operate in their disputed land and then to split the assets between the two states and then the two states would reinvest in the neighbouring countries so if they attack their neighbours, they would harm their own assets and then they let the local people vote in the future over which state to govern them or just have a tidal border, every two years they hand the land over to the other state. So for two years the land belongs to Armenia and then for 2 years it belongs to Azerbaijan. Some things only make sense to me, I'm sure that no one would ever embrace my ideas. 

Azerbaijan and Armenia remind me that Europe and Asia are one continent, I can walk from Calais in France to Beijing in China without getting on a boat, we are Eurasian. The two states are next to Turkey and Iran and near Georgia and are between the Black sea and Casbian Sea where all the land masses meet. I would say the middle east is the centre of the world. If someone from Armenia or Azerbaijan came to my home, I would pour them both a cup of coffee or tea the same way because they are my brothers and I feel sad when there is a conflict in the world but I am just an ordinary man, there is nothing I can do. 

Drizzle day

Jacob, my son. You have reached a stage in your life where you run more than you walk. As soon as you see a long straight area of the floor, you run across it. Sometimes you fall over while you run but you let your knees and palms of your hands take the flack, you push you knees and palms out towards the floor to protect your head and torso. No one can teach you that, you learned it yourself. I wish you wouldn't run so much but you are a toddler. It is nice to hear you say words, you say them imperfectly but that is normal for your age group. 

Bungle Bot

I think it would be very nice if a technology company made a lifesize humanoid shaped robot that looks like Bungle the Bear from the children's TV show rainbow. If you don't know what bungle the Bear looks like then look him up on the internet.  Bungle the robot bear would play the theme tune from Dogtanian but without the lyrics and give random people a hug and pat their back. 

Dogtanian and Rainbow were two different children's TV shows but they are both very cool. He would say 'Hello, I am Bungle. What is your name?". Then I would say, I'm Alan, nice Dogtanian intro music". Then bungle would say "I am a hug Robot, I give all people a Hug and pat them on the back, would you like a hug?". I would say "ok". Then the Robot would give me a hug and tell me everything is going to be fine and pat me on the back, then it would tell me to keep my chin up. If I was having a bad day or I feel like life is rubbish then I could tell bungle what is bothering me and bungle would say "that is terrible, I hope things are better tomorrow", or something like that. 

Friendly humanoid robots that comfort people for nothing, yes please. 

World war 3

I think there will be a word war 3 because we live in a fragmented world, full of tension. I think the most likely place world war 3 would start is on the Pacific Ocean on an island. I'm not a sadist, just observant. 

There is no east or west on a sphere unless you draw a line on it. In the west you have capitalist NATO, pro American democracies. In the east you have modernized communism with authoritive less democratic states and dictatorships. 

East and West meet in the Pacific Ocean and the middle east. Saudi Arabia is West aligned, Iran is East aligned. Japan and Philippines is West aligned, North Korea and China are east aligned. Israel and India is West Aligned, Russia is east aligned. Everything meets in the Pacific Ocean and the Middle east. The other half of the world has no polarity. 

One planet, 3 worlds and 3 world wars. I hope not. 

Face and Phone

Sometimes I use my phone to read when I am in bed. I fall asleep slightly and drop my phone on my face, then I wake up again. There doesn't seem to be a word for it so I will make one up. 

Word press? No that is a blogging platform.

Sometimes the phone hits me in the eye, no, eye phone is too similar to I phone. Face boot. Nope, sounds like Facebook. 

Hmmm

Face-phone, that will do. I get face-phoned quite often. 

Face-phone is the word. 

Millennium Dome

In the year 2000, the millennium dome was opened to celebrate the start of the new millennium on the Greenwich peninsula by the river Thames. I was there. I bought a ticket to the millennium dome, my memory was unreliable but I remember my ticket was printed from a lottery machine so every shop that sold lottery tickets could sell you a ticket to the Dome. I think it worked like that, not sure though. I got my Ticket from a Londis on the high street where I lived at the time. 

I remember getting to North Greenwich (grenich) train station and seeing how modern the station looked. All the walls in the train station were covered in Chrome panels and the station was very deep underground. I think the train station and the Jubilee train line extension were also built at the same time as the Dome so the Train station was as new as the Dome. 

I walked out of the chrome plated train station and out onto the concourse. I remember that it was a very big open space and there was lots of canopies to cover your head if it was raining. There was a large screen made with L.E.D lights and a vertical drop ride. I saw lots of small vendors selling snacks and merchandise. The whole place was so big and the Dome looked so modern. When I walked through the ticket gate, I was given a Marconi voting card and a map of the Dome attractions, there was Marconi voting machines throughout the Dome and one side of the card said yes and the other side said no. You would put the card into the terminals to give your opinion. The inside of the Dome was so big, I couldn't believe it, to me it was impressive. The roof was so big that it looked like a beige sky from another planet. I saw lots of buildings inside that were little museums, there was a body zone. The planet ride. I think there was an exhibit for money and travel in the future. They were all amazing in their own way. There was a meditation mini dome inside, a dome in a dome where you could just sit about and look at mood lighting. I remember there was a exhibit with a small beach inside and even a large football table. Some of the exhibits looked a bit rushed. Others were well made. I remember there was a model of the Starship enterprise from star trek inside the travel exhibit. There was lots of things to see there. 

I later learned that the Dome failed to make back all the money raised to pay for its construction. They didn't get 12 million visitors within the whole year so they made a loss. I think it was sold off and turned into the O2 arena some years later. The press was calling the Dome a white elephant at the time because it wasn't doing very well. I think it should have stayed open for five years and the tickets should have been just £15 each, Then they would have made back the cost with profit. It wasn't like that for them, they only opened for one year and tried to make all the money back in 12 months. 

I will remember the Millennium Dome as an amazing failure that I was able to visit. 

Cost of a lie

As far as I am aware, every wicked deed in this world starts as a lie. I read through 'Mine Campf' by Aldolf Hitler, the English translation. In the 1920s and 30s, Germany was going through very tough times, they were broke and hungry and licking their wounds from world war 1. In Hitler's book it blames every bad thing that happened in Germany on Gypsies, Jews and the communist Party. The communist party never came to power and was never involved in any decisions. It also claimed the the Germans were the superior race, it claimed they were superior to all other races on the planet. The whole book and everything he said was a lie. 

At the turn of the millenium a lie was circulating that Iraq had weapons of mass distruction and were preparing to use them. The truth was they didn't have weapons of mass destruction and they were content with the reality of retaliation when they cross another countries borders. Not long after that, America and the UK invaded Iraq. They were invading a sovereign country that did nothing to them because of lies. 

Every murderer lies to themselves, they tell themselves that it is ok to kill someone for what ever reason, it's not ok, it is a crime. It is never ok to kill another human being, even if they did something horrible to you in the past. When the murderer kills, they cover up their crime and lie about what they have done. 

If someone says something with no evidence or proof then they are most likely lying and should be condemned. If someone says something and you think is a lie then you should speak out and rebuke that lie because it will open a doorway to wickedness. 

Social media

Reading through social media is very dull at the moment. 

If you are reading this article in the distant future relative to me, I would say that social media is like a never ending page that you scroll through by swiping your finger upwards across your screen. The never ending page is full of pictures, videos and text that people share. The main social media pages are Facebook and Twitter at the moment. 

People are sharing their joy of Donald Trump losing the general election, that is fine but it just gets boring after a while. I don't want to see 300 memes of trump losing. It is so repetitive and dull. There are other amazing things in this world to share, like this blog or Mysteries and unusual facts. 

Biden takes the helm

Joe Biden has been elected the president of the United States of America, the stats showed it was very close, there was 2% difference in the results. My role in this world is to observe and listen, I have no polarity towards any political group or leader. 

I congratulate Biden and Harris in being elected as the leaders of America. I hope they will help out Britain and work with them for a happy outcome. Biden means button in the old English language, with some luck he will button up Covid19 for good. I wish them the best of luck. 

The big issues they will face is the rising cost of living in the America, the dept owed by the American government spending and the affects of Artificial Intelligence on jobs. Also the world has divided itself into east and west despite being a sphere, a fragmented world isn't going to be a peaceful one. Peace and prosperity. 

Cold Day

Jacob, my son. The reason I called you Curtis is because I wanted you to have a middle name that means respect. Many Brits living at this  time seem to lack respect. Sometimes I see used tissues placed on a shelf next to food in a supermarket, they blow their nose then they leave the tissue on an empty part of the supermarket shelf, that is very disrespectful to everyone. On the buses and trains, some of the seats face eachother, I see people putting their feet on the seat opposite them, all the dirt on their shoe will then be on the other passengers bottom, that is so rude.  People throw rubbish on the floor on the street, they want someone else to pick it up for them. I hear people swearing outside in a public place sometimes and there are young children around. 

Your middle name literally means respect (courtesy/courteous) because I don't want you to grow into a rude person. To me, that is very important. 

Emoji good

When I post links for this blog on twitter, it doesn't show the graphics for this blog, it doesn't put the link into a bubble or button, all it does is it changes the colour of the link to blue. 

I realized the other day that I could just use emojis in the text, they are like characters but the are also little pictures, some of the emojis are like panels. I will have to experiment with it until I get it write. 

I love the idea of using up all characters on twitter that are allowed, I think you get 140 or something like that. 

Lockdown countdown

The second lockdown to slow down the covid19 virus has started in the UK. No liesure, no recreation, only shopping for food, essential work and waiting. It is cold and dark and the frost reaches the ground where I live at night, the coastal areas don't have to worry yet because they are close to sea level so the frost can't reach them before it melts, although some costal areas are hilly so the hilltops would get smeared with frost. 

It was at the start of the UK lockdown that the American general election votes were being counted. The outcome is a knife edge result, very close, an almost 50 : 50 split. The American political map resembles the British Christmas snap election one in some way, you have one big clump supporting Republicans(Trump) in the centre of the country and the east and west coast supporting Democrats(Biden) except Florida and nearby states. 

Politics wasn't the only rivalry occuring, games companies were releasing their next generation games consoles. PlayStation is taking online payments for the PlayStation 5, XBox has the XBox X and S, PlayStation and Xbox were releasing 4k masterpieces. Then you have the Atari VCS, a 4k video gaming PC that is souped up as a retro flashback combo system. If I was loaded with cash I would get all three of them, the XBox, PlayStation and VCS. 

My head was buried in my own little world, dreaming of having a bigger home with a room just for liesure called the "happy zone", a "man cave" filled with arcade machines and gaming tables with a drinks & coffee bar. I watch videos of all the "arcade1up" compact arcade machines. One of my creations has to be outstanding in some way to lift me and my small family out of the grey(gray) zone. I keep trying and never give up. 

knife Edge

I have recently learned that the results for American general election are very close. Where I come from they would call it a hung result or knife edge outcome, but not quite, the counting hasn't finished just yet. I don't really have a political polarity. When I vote, I just vote for the party I dislike the least or I just flip a coin. I'm British so this isn't my call anyway. 

It was during the American 2020 knife edge election that the frost reached the ground in my town, it was getting close the days before, I could see the condensation that comes before the frost in the mornings on windows and blades of grass. The frost reached the ground a day before the second English lockdown to slow the Pandemic Covid19 virus so our hospitals could continue to operate effectively for all. Roof slates and car bodies were covered in ice for the first time since winter. Tomorrow lockdown will start again, no non essential shopping, only food and no liesure, no eating out or cafés, no parties, no social visits. Perhaps we will know who will be the American president for the next 4 years by tomorrow, the only thing I know is everything here will stop. May the best man for the job win, I will say no more. 

What October means to me

For me, October 2020 was a bit windy and dark, lots of heavy duty clouds were being blown around. 

There were rumours looming of a second lockdown. On the last thursday of October, our Prime Minister Boris Johnson confirmed that we will spend 4 weeks in a second lockdown, this means all the non essential shops will be forced to close and we will only be able to buy food and things like that for most of November. This is because the transmission rate of the virus is about 1.5, that means 10 Brits are infecting 15 Brits on average, they call it the "R" rate. Just under 50,000 Brits were killed by the virus so far.

The previous year we were struggling with a Brexit deadlock, now it is a lockdown. We are restricted from meeting people socially, no eating out, no gyms, no shopping except for food and medicine, no cinema no visiting friends. 

Earlier in the week there was a large earthquake in Turkey and Greece and a mini Tsunami in the Mediterranean sea. There was civil conflict in France over a magazine that offends many in the name of freedom of speech. I believe a teacher and a Priest were both killed in separate incidents. 

There was a lot of rivalry between Donald Trump and Joe Biden for the American general election. It will be interesting to see who wins. I maintain a neutral political polarity, I don't support anyone. I'm British anyway so it has nothing to do with me. 

Outstanding by fun

It's cold, it is dark, the world is sick and I get spurts of stress. To get through the day I use my usual coping mechanisms. I read, play and imagine, write and pray. 

I keep my dreams alive, I watch videos on YouTube of "arcade1up" and "myarcade" merchandise and dream of the day when I will have a collection of arcade machines and share my hobbies with visitors and guests. 

The "happy zone" liesure room, the place to forget about the world for a while and be lost in a hobby or two.

Slowly, the collection has started. I will keep every game that is outstanding because of fun, Tetris, Galaga, Pacman, Street fighter and Mario cart. The ageless classics that were never about graphics. 

Witch Hunt

Not too long ago in the middle ages and up till the 1750s, thousands of people were accused of being a witch and killed in the most violent way possible, with fire. There is nothing more violent in this world than burning a person to death. Every nerve ending maxes out fully and every cell it split open and the blood boils and flows out. The skin is destroyed and all the organs stop working. Death is certain and very painful. 

Every last one of those people that were burned were innocent because witches are supernatural beings that use magic to harm others. No human in this world can do that. What would happen is something bad would happen to one person, then they would think it was because of another person, the suspicion would spread through a town or village.  There would be mass hysteria in a village when things were going wrong.  

I often wonder if I would become part of the mass hysteria if I lived in a village amoungst a person  accused of being a witch in that time period. Would I help them build the fire? Would I believe the other people that are around me or would I be the guy that thinks it was nonsense? Would I be cheering as their hair melts and skin peels off? Would I be one of them? I don't know. I hope I would be the guy that thinks it is nonsense and doesn't get involved. 

My little world traffic light

In my little world everything works differently, everything. It is not better or worse just totally different. 

Even a traffic light in my little world would work differently. In my little world there would be four coloured lights on a traffic light signal. "Red" to stop and wait, "Amber/orange" to prepare for a change, "green" to go and "Blue" for dormant signals. The blue light is the same as green but it is warning you that the other lanes in the junction are not being controlled so be cautious. The blue lights would come on at about 1 in the morning when there are very few cars on the road. The amber light would not sit under the red light but would be a bar on the side of the red and green lights that shrinks or grows to show the driver how long he has before the lights change, it would be like a countdown timer that takes about 7 seconds to expand or retract. 

The pedestrian crossing lights would also be totally different, they would just be a heads up sign and would not resemble a traffic light until a pedestrian presses the button to cross. When they press the button the text disappears and the green light shows with the orange bar on the side expanding upwards, when the orange bar has fully expanded the green light turns off and red light turns on. Then the orange light shrinks again, when it reaches the bottom the red light turns off and green light turns on. Then the green light shrinks and the heads up text returns to the screen. 

Atari VCS 800 slap

Back in the 90s, the Atari corporation went bankrupt. They went out with a bang, they made some amazing games consoles. Atari Jaguar and Atari lynx hand held with full colour screen. I like the first person shooter games like Doom and Wolfenstein that appeared on the consols. I would have chosen the Atari jaguar myself if I had a choice. 

I recently learned that a company has bought the Atari trade mark and remade a modern version of their retro consol called the Atari 2600. They are calling it the Atari VCS 800, or Atari box. This company is taking crowd funding and making a modern version of the retro Atari. They are setting it up so it can be used as PC and will boot any operating system that will run on ATX standard motherboards. (Windows and Linux). 

The problem is the price is about the same as the PlayStation 5 and is being released at the time, but it has less computing power. Also, everyone is being left in the dark about what the consol can do, the 11 thousand crowd funders and all the people that have pre-ordered it. And some people are looking between the lines, they are seeing a normal ATX computer that is being put in a retro case. Plus the Atari vault is very cheap so all the retro games can be bought cheaply on other consols. 

I want it to be successful, if I was loaded I would add it to my man cave, even if it was a rip off. Well, we will see what happens this winter, it will be very interesting. 

Failed movie

A few years ago I tried to make a feature length movie for youtube, I believe I recorded my intention  in this blog. The movie was going to a documovie about our amazing world. The project was a failure. What had happened is I tried to make the whole movie in one chunk and I made up the story as I went along. The time line in the movie was getting messed up and it just turned into a mess. Although I failed to make a movie I walked away with a lesson, I learned that to make a movie, the story comes first. When you make a story you have to break the story up into parts then you split the parts up into scenes. If you break the movie up into 15 minute chunks then you can make sure that each 15 minute scene is in working order and would play well on their own. Then you bring together all the 6 or more 15 minute scenes in an editor software and publish your 1 & ½ hour plus movie. 

The other lesson is my voice. I need to make my voice strong and a bit more lively. My short documentary videos are not very popular and that is partly because I am the narrator. If my short documentaries become popular, then I can make a whole movie. So before I make a second attempt to make a movie I will improve my voice, I will record my narration in my car where I won't worry about disturbing anyone.

If my movie is successfully finished, I would call my movie "Alanasis ~ How Amazing" or something like that and it would be about everything that is Amazing. 

The scenes don't need to be made in the same order they play in, I learned that from one of my favourite movies "the thing". The destroyed Norwegian base in the movie was shot at the end after they destroyed the set of the American base. This allowed them to save money. Instead of destroying two sets they destroyed one set and filmed it again at the end as the discovery of the Norwegian base. The destroyed Norwegian base appears near the beginning of the movie but it was actually filmed at the end and edited that way. That is something to think about. The scenes should be filmed in the order that is easiest to do, not necessarily in chronological order. 

Free School meals cut

The government has voted to cut free school meals from schools. I'm not really in control of what the government does. Once we have elected them, they make big decisions on our behalf. 

I think it would be a good idea for parents to give their children jacket potatoes and busicuits as part of their meal. In the market place you can buy a 7 killogram sack of potatoes for less than £5. You would probably give them about 250 grams worlth  of potatoes for each meal so that works out as about 17p. Plus a few biscuits and a fruit, about 25p. Potatoes contain a small amount of everything, they contain iron which is good for the blood, they contain carbohydrates in the potato starch, they contain proteins in the skin and just under the skin, potatoes also contain fat plus the sauce that your kid would use probably contains fat, they would get most the nutrition they would need from that at a very low price. 

The other option I thought of is to make pasta or rice and sauce, use a microwave to boil pasta in a bowl then add sauce and fry some bread in olive oil and cut it into strips and add tomato puree and add it to the pasta. Again it would cost about 20 to 25p if you buy it in bulk. The total cost would be £1 to £1.25 per week.

I can't control what the government does but I give out some ideas to parents. 

In my little world

My mind is a little world, a kind reflection of the real world but everything would work slightly differently. 

If my mind became the real world then you would find yourself in a strange place.  It would be common to find slides for adults in my world. It would be a legitimate mode of transport, just like a lift. The slide would spiral around like a helter skelter or go towards an important location. Slides have two directions, forwards and downwards. 

On a metro rail system, people can take a slide down to the platform, the slide would have rollers with magnets in them. As the rollers spin, the magnetic field would move through wires below and generate electricity to help the station with power slightly, it wouldn't be enough to power the lights in the train station but it would help a bit. To leave the station, pedestrians would walk up a twisting ramp with a very shallow slope so people wouldn't realize they are ascending several meters upwards by walking. Slides would be everywhere, shopping malls, government buildings, multi-story car parks. Some slides would just be a sheet of metal, others would be rollers. The slides would have a self cleaning system, the pedestrian's bum wipes the dust off the slide surface, simple and effective. 

Rev 9 Locust

If there is one thing I would like to draw it is Locusts of the abyss in Revelation chapter9. There is a fairly long description of them in the book. It says they Have a face like a man, long hair like a woman, a body like a horse, they sting like Scorpion and their wings sound like many horses galloping. They also have features of a lion and they wear gold on their heads or something like that. 

It says they will cause immense pain to mankind and stop them from killing themselves. Perhaps their sting would paralyse them for 5 months. I don't know. 

I need to use my imagination to try and draw them. On YouTube many people have a different idea of what these beings are. Some people think they are Demons from hell, others think they are machines like helicopters. Some people think they are aliens and the abyss is space. 

If you lookup rev9 locust on YouTube, you will see what I am talking about. Or if you look up locust of the abyss  then you will see many videos of people's theories and premonition dreams. 

In my little world

In my little world everything would work differently. Electric cars would work a lot like Diesel Electric trains. They would have batteries but not enough power cells to drive very far. They would have very small petrol engines that don't power the wheels directly, the engine would be used to generate electricity for the electric motor. When you are waiting at the traffic lights, the fuel engine is spinning frantically to recharge the batteries. The fuel engine would cost about £200 and be just strong enough to spin an electric generator. The roof of the car would be a 4 or 5²m solar panel. Sunlight would help the car to charge up its power cells more quickly. 

The fuel engine would be very small and weak, it would slide out of the car easily and the fuel tank would sit on top of the engine so it wouldn't need a fuel pump, gravity would pull the fuel into the engine as the throttle opens. There would only be two connections between the fuel engine and the car, a fuel line and power out socket, that's it. It would be bolted down in the bonnet just like a harddisk on a desktop computer. 

The batteries would be very strong but they would only store enough power to take the car 20 kilometres. When the car is parked, the fuel and electric engine would both be switched off but sunlight would help to finish recharging the batteries through the solar panel that is integrated into the roof. 

If you wanted to go more than 20 kilometres it would be fine because the small fuel engine and solar panels would help to top up the charge and slow down the charge depletion. 

The electric motor wouldn't work very hard because there are no excess parts, the car wouldn't weigh much, there would be no exhaust pipe, no clutch, no gears, the fuel engine would weigh as much as a lawnmower engine, about 8 killograms and the electric motor would weigh the same. 

That is the way I think. It is not necessary right or wrong, just a thought that may never get beyond this blog. 

I'm a planeteer

In the 90s I would watch Captain planet and I would sing the chorus of the theme song. 

"We're the planeteers, you can be one too, saving our planet is the thing to do. Using and polluting is not the way, hear what captain planet has to say". I think the song went something like that.

It suddenly dawned on me that I am a planeteer because I stop loads of bread from being thrown into landfill. I go into a shop and buy all the bread that is being reduced to 30p and put them all in my deep freezer, then in the morning when I wake up I break off slices of frozen bread from a frozen loaf and put it in the toaster. I have to turn the thermostat on my toaster higher for frozen bread but it comes out just fine. I have a never ending supply of toast that won't go bad. 

I also freeze reduced milk and then leave it in the fridge overnight to thaw. I use the milk for my porridge oats. I have dark brown sticky sugar that I put on my oats. I microwave one cup of oats and one cup of milk for 3 minutes then I mix the dark brown sticky sugar, they taste delicious. 

I don't know what ring I would have, electricity perhaps? "Earth!, Water!, Wind, ice, Electricity. Go captain planet have some toast and oats, say hi to the thunder cats". 

 

Vectrex, my Verdict

I see myself as an armchair backseat marketing expert, armed with a lifetime of hindsight from observing the fate of companies in the 90s and new millennium, I think it is a position every other person would fill in some way or another. 

Well, in the 80s there was a kind of struggle. The cost of making micro processors was very high compared to today because they couldn't be made very quickly. In fact the new google chrome that costs less than £50 would be considered a super computer at the time I was born. The common processor in the 80s was a z80, it was an 8 bit processor. 8 bit processors dominated the 80s and had a presence in the early 90s in all the hand held games consoles. 

There was one device that caught my attention recently, the Vectrex. The smiths electronic company wanted to make a table top games consol that had its own screen but still be affordable and have decent graphics, for a very short time they pulled it off. The Vectrex had a black and white screen but the games came with translucent overlays, the overlays would have coloured tints and graphics printed on it so you would put it on the screen, it would make the games on it appear to be multicoloured. If they did have a true coloured screen they would need to make sacrifices on other parts of the system like the size of the screen would need to be smaller to allow the processor to keep up, or maybe the sounds would be less detailed. 

To cut a long story short, I would say it was a failure because they didn't sell enough of them to make a significant profit and they gave up. What had happened is many people in the 80s were buying their own TVs so they didn't need a game system with its own screen so the system appeared overpriced and screen was black and white.  Naming one of your computer games "Rip off" didn't help. I just wonder what would happen if they kept going, if they made the Vectrex 2 and they remained in the home gaming market to this day? What would Vectrex gaming system look like today and what would it be like to play it? Perhaps there would be a Vectrex 12 or something like that. 

Alan Pasta

When I cook food for myself, I often balance time with quality. If I don't want to spend too much time cooking I will put pasta into a ceramic bowl and fill the bowl with water, then I will microwave the bowl for 20 minutes. My microwave oven is weak compared to other microwaves, more powerful microwaves would need less time. 

When the microwave has finished I would remove the excess water and mix a table sauce into the pasta instead of cooking a bolonase sauce. I would add tomato ketchup and catch up with the news. I would add peri peri lemon and herbs and think of something superb. 

I wonder what Gordon Ramsay would think of my cooking, My parents always told me if you pull faces it will stay like that when the wind changes. I guess it would also be true of an angry face. 

I swear

I hear more swearing now than ever before. People are always angry. Swear words are so old, they should make up new ones. I thought of some modern ones. 

Frack you! and your Garden for shale gas. 

Your motherboard is stupid.

Put a smart chip in your brain and meditate you chipmonk!

I can't imagine putting a microchip in my brain. Even if the chip allows me to play a mario cart game on a screen that floats in my vision. Even if the chip has Netflix on it and I watch movies while I work. The only chip the goes into my head is made of potatoes. 

Narration breakthrough

Yesterday night I created a one minute short documentary video for my YouTube channel. The biggest flaw in the video is the sound. My voice isn't very clear on there. That is because I didn't want to wake up my young son and wife while they were sleeping. To overcome this problem next time, I will record the narration in my car before I start my job or when I am parked somewhere. I can then bluetooth the sound file to the little smart box from my phone. 

The key is to write the narration out then print the narration, then I will record the audio in my car while I wait for my job to start. 

My car is a vehicle that takes me to my job and home, it is also a classroom where I learn Spanish, now it is a sound recording studio. The one place where I can project my voice for recording without causing a problem for other people.

Five pence video

Last night was a new first, I created a one minute short documentary video on a droid box. I used a £25 smart android TV box to create, edit, publish and post a one minute video. The video has the same look and feel as the other short documentaries I made. If you can make a one minute video on a droid box then I'm sure you can make a 5 minute and 10 minute video. I chose that topic because I knew it would be very quick, I would go straight to the point. The purpose of this video is to experiment with the abilities of the hardware I was using, to see what my little box of keeps can do. 

One lesson I have learned about making short documentaries is that the story comes first. First you do your research and write out the audio lines and then record the narration. After that you build the graphics around the narration audio. Then you polish off the animations and play it through a few times to find mistakes. I tried to make a feature length 90 minute movie about amazing things in the past but it was messy and unplanned so the project failed. 

The planing and story always comes first. If I do make an "Alanasis" 90 minute movie I will make it 15 minutes at a time and follow a plan. Then I would stitch the 6 videos together in the editor. It is on the bucket list. 

Three lines and three dots

Very often when I am interacting with software on my smart phone, I will find that to open a menu I press an image with three dots or three lines. 

Three dots or three lines has become the standard way to open or expand a menu on an app. While I was using Chrome browser I found a very useful menu item. 

the "add to home screen" menu item allows me to add links to web pages on the desktop, the links sit with the start icons for apps. Some sites don't seem to have a standard app of their own, like Britannica encyclopedia so I created a desktop shortcut to the site that sits next to my Wikipedia app in the same folder. I read both encyclopedias to compare an article or topic for the sake of accuracy. 

I am the only person I know of that spends more time reading encyclopedia articles than using social media. I don't spend very much time on social media at all, sometimes I only use social media for 1 minute to share my blogs. 

Bluetooth

I read through the article about bluetooth. The logo for bluetooth is the initials of Harrold Bluetooth (Viking king of denmark) and the blue bit is a blueberry. The king unified Denmark, he loved to eat a lot of blueberries to the point where is mouth turned blue. The old Viking character for H resembled a line the an X in the middle. 

If a technology was named after me it would be a slice of bread plus letter A and B pushed together, perhaps with a cup of coffee in the logo. 

Anyway, bluetooth is lots of different connection technologies put together. Different profiles but they all use ultra high frequencies (UHF). This means the waves are over a million Hertz and are about 10cm wide. Most of the transmitters are deliberately weak to be power efficient because they only need to transmit a few meters. 

There is class one two and three blue tooth transmitters. Class one is very weak and used for devices that are near. Class two is for 10 meters, most devices use class 2. Then you have class 3, it has no upper limit, you could fill a whole valley with the signal. 

On Wikipedia, there are so many related articles to the Bluetooth one that I rediscovered reading lists. On the Wikipedia app you can open a menu on an article and add it to a reading list for later. It is a very useful feature.

Nephew on the way

Last week I learned that my Brother's wife is expecting a Boy, this means I will have more than three Nephews, my wife's sister has a son and my Brother has a son and one on the way that is due end of winter and my brother's wife's family also has sons.  His older brother was born at the start of Summer, it is nice to have a birthday where you can have a BBQ in your party, my birthday is in the middle of Summer. 

I am very happy to be an uncle again. I wish them a smooth and straightforward delivery before spring 2021. I look forward to meeting my new nephew that is less than two years younger than my son. 

At the time of learning of my future nephew, I had reached a phase of my life where I was merging some of my hobbies together. I am bringing my pen sketches into my videos and into my blog posts. I also write about some of the computer games that I play. I have five active hobbies at the moment, blogging, video making, sketching, video gaming and reading for liesure. I make them fit into my busy life by doing them bit by bit and saving the progress. I don't try to finish everything in one go, I aim for quality over quantity. I would be walking in a shop and writing a blog with one hand and then at home when my son is sleeping I would draw a picture with pens and paper. When I am laying in bed I will read an e-book on my phone or read a Wikipedia article. 

My goal is to make my hobbies very outstanding, to the point where millions of people around the world enjoy seeing them. I look for excellence like the Swiss and the Japanese. Excellence is the word, I'm not there yet. I'm no Bob Ross at drawing or Charles Dickens at writing but I do my best and try to improve every day. One day my work will be excellent by my own standards but not yet. 

Cool night

Jacob, my son. We are heading for Halloween, you imitated the laughing sound of a witch and vampire. I wonder what they find so funny? They are definitely not laughing at one of my jokes. 

You are more independent now and hate being picked up. I have seen how much you have changed. You were born when Therasa May was still at the helm, she resigned because there was a Brexit related deadlock in parliament and her cabinet couldn't make any progress. The whole house of commons was pulling in different directions over Brexit for 3 years and nothing was getting done. You were born during the Brexit deadlock. Then at the end of your infancy you learned to walk during the Pandemic. 

Being Consumed

One of the best states of mind to be in is to be completely consumed by something. For me it is reading a book about mysteries or playing a piont and click management game where you build things. 

That is being consumed, drinking a super strong coffee and connecting my Bluetooth joystick to my TV box and using it as a mouse so I can build beautiful things in the comfort of my couch. They made bluetooth 5 now. If I get the time I will try and find out what the difference is between Bluetooth 5 and Bluetooth 4. I think I will read through the whole Bluetooth article until I sleep. Wikipedia has an article for so many things. 

Bluetooth is like WiFi but it is weaker, it is used to connect two devices together. I can send files from my phone to my android box through bluetooth and I can connect input devices like keyboards and joysticks and I can connect output devices like headphones. Blue tooth has become a very versatile connection platform. 

Buses in my little world

If my little world was the real world, everything would work slightly differently. 

In my little world, bus stops would be integrated into roundabouts. The island in the middle of the roundabout would contain at least two asphalt aprons for buses to park on. When people get of the bus they find themselves on the roundabout Island with cars circling them. To get off the island they would walk up a ramp that would go to the pavement on the other side or down a ramp to a subway below. 

In my little world there are also bus parking asphalt aprons on the turns in the road so the bus wouldn't need to manoeuvre it would just remain in a turning state and straighten as it enters the bus stop and then the bus would just drive in a straight line to leave the bus stop. Does my little world in my head make any sense to other people? I don't know. 

In my little world, the island in the middle of a roundabout isn't a garden, but it may contain plants and large boxes. 

Miracles of this world

There is a mammal on this planet that lays eggs, it looks like a duck and a beaver at the same time. It also has a venomous sting behind its legs, it is called a Platypus and it is a type of monetreme. They live in Australia. 

It is a mammal because it has a four chambered heart and produces milk. And I think it has 3 ear bones to amplify sound. It has all the mammal features, except it lays eggs. 

If I am in the presence of a very young person, would they know that such a creature exists? Young people seem to know a lot of things but they miss the miracles of this world. They don't realize that the world around us is full of amazing things. 

To me it is important to observe that these things exist because they are amazing. They are more amazing than the celebrity lineup for a TV show. They are more amazing than a movie or a song. I want to live in a world where young people are telling me about amazing creatures that I never knew existed. I want them to tell me about historical events I didn't know about. I want to be the guy that listens. 

Point and Click haven

There are times when there is nothing to do but wait, like when you are laying down in bed at night and waiting to drift off. There would be something bugging you and keeping you awake sometimes.

All I have is praying, reading and playing. I play roller coaster Tycoon. It is a point and click management game. During the day time I have my active hobbies, blogging, video making and sketching. 

The best thing is when I connect my bluetooth controller to the android system. My bluetooth controller has two modes, games controller and mouse controller. I set my bluetooth joystick to mouse controller, the left analogue stick controls the mouse pointer, the right analogue stick also controls the mouse pointer but in slow motion. The left shoulder button that is used to control a gun in a game is used in mouse mode to left click and the right shoulder button is right click. When I play roller coaster Tycoon, I am consumed by the game and feel fine. Being consumed by something like drawing a picture or writing a blog brings peace in the mind. 

There are three roller coaster Tycoon games, I have one of them, roller coaster Tycoon 4 mobile. I want the original classic one from the turn of the millennium. There is also a 3d one where you can visit the park that you have created. I will get the other two soon. 

Gift of the rain

It has been raining incessantly for 2 days now. One thing I have noticed is when it rains a lot, I can get TV and radio from other valleys. The town I live in is in a very steep valley with very large hills. If it is raining a lot I will get extra digital TV channels when I retune the TV. I can even get radio from the Midlands and Surrey sometimes. 

The question is why? I have two theories, one is that the clouds are reflecting the signal back down to the ground and over the sides of the valley. The other is the rain itself is bending the signal around. 

I have no idea why I can get TV and Radio from other valleys when it is raining a lot, I guess I will just need to ask the all knowing internet when I have the time. Some of the TV I get when it is raining a lot is very nice. 

Trump Sick

I recently learned that Donald and Evanka Trump both have a Covid19 infection. I wish them both a quick recovery and good health. 

My country UK is trying to stop the Covid19 virus using a smart phone app. The idea is to create many dead ends for the disease, it tells you when you were near someone that had tested positive for covid19 so you can test yourself before you have symptoms and self isolate early so you won't transmit the disease to another person. I hope it works. I think it uses Bluetooth to scan other people's unique app ID. 

There is one test I would love to do but I have put it on ice because of the Pandemic. I would like to see what iphones do when you connect a Bluetooth input device to it. I have a bluetooth keyboard and touchpad, when I connect it to my android phone, my phone behaves like a desktop computer. A mouse pointer appears on the screen and the keyboard gets overridden by the Bluetooth one. This effect is the same with all android devices, phone, tablet, smart TV with android & bluetooth, android TV box with bluetooth, they all behave like a desktop pc when a bluetooth keyboard and mouse combo is connected to them. Would the same be true of an apple product? 

I will wait until the Pandemic is gone to find out, we get no visitors at the moment so there is no way for me to try. 

Trump and Biden

I watched the televised political debate between the two candidates for the next term as American president. I would compare it to a bulimia convention, they were bringing up everything except what I want to hear. 

I wanted to hear a plan to bring down the cost of living and get rid the deficit from government spending. I don't care about stuff they said the previous year and decade. 

They were both just saying how incompetent they think the other guy is. It was all tosh. I pity the people of America. You all saw two old men insulting and arguing for one and a half hours. I'm sure some Americans will just flip a coin to vote. 

Phone power price

The electricity used my my phone has a price so I thought I would try to work out how much that is. 

I charge my phone phone for 2 hours every day. The charger on my phone uses 15 watts so every day I am using one 33rd of a killowatt hour. One killowatt hour of electricity in my home costs 10p. So 10p divided by 33 is  0.3 pence per day. My phone costs about one third of a penny per day. There are 365 days in one year so my phone's electricity costs 109.5 pence. Less than £1.10. 

The cost of electricity used by my phone is 

0.3 pence per day

2.1 pence per week

109.5 pence per year

I don't always charge my phone all the way so I would say the electricity used by my phone costs about £1 per year and I have a very bad deal, most people in the UK pay less than 10p per killowatt hour. The cost of electricity of most Brit's phones is less than £1 per year, perhaps 80p. 

At the time I wrote this, £1 is roughly the same as $1. About the price of a branded loaf of bread or two budget loafs. 

 

Things to Try

I would like to try putting Roller coaster Tycoon on my TV box, it has support for bluetooth keyboards with touch pads. There is two 'Roller Coaster tycoon' games that I want to put on it. Classic Roller coaster Tycoon and the mobile edition. 

I am also trying to get Nintendo to make their android Mario cart game work with bluetooth controllers. That would be awsome. That way I can play it on the TV and through the Internet. 

Brisk Day

Jacob, my son. Earlier in the day you entered a new phase of your development, you can walk briskly and confidently. You have mastered walking and can walk very fast and run in short spurts. You don't feel worried about falling down. 

There is a phrase, "what a difference a day makes". Within the space of one day you went from woddling and toddling to walking with confidence. You have a very pleased look on your face because you walk just like us, you have mastered walking. 

You spent the 2020 lockdown spring learning to walk, you spent the summer woddling and toddling and in the first few days of autumn at the end of September you walk briskly with confidence and full control. You don't even reach out your hands to grab things as you pass, you just walk like it is natural to you. 

A new first

A few days ago I managed to make a video on a smart TV box. I downloaded "power director" app on my android box and made a quick video to see if it was possible to do so. It was just a quick fame change of two still images. It was an experiment to see if my TV box could make and deliver a video to my YouTube channel, it worked. 

The last two YouTube videos I made were on my phone but this test video was on a TV box(a TV) I used the same power director software on the TV box that I use for my phone. 

When you get very little free time, convenient  little things make a big difference. To me being able to make a video on your TV without a desktop computer is amazing, perhaps it is only me that thinks this way. Without moving from the sofa I can create videos, making videos is my third hobby. 

A happy place

It is true autumn and we are heading towards shorter darker days. A new episode for the the Pandemic is opening and it is darker than the winter. All I can do now is pray and imagine me and my family are in a happy place. 

I imagine taking Jacob to Chessington world of adventures in the summer. I imagine the happy excitement and all the happy memories he may have. There are so many places for us to go to and visit. 

Just walking around and going on different rides, the Pandemic is gone or mutated into a less dangerous nuisance. I imagine the sound of all the people and the queueing and the sound of the rides. I imagine the smell of onions frying in the open air and candy floss. I imagine looking at a map with happy faces on it and discussions about where we are going. 

I imagine the 3 of us going out to a Chinese buffet and eating too much and woddling home. 

Mind blowing PI

Today I went to the raspberrypi.org website to see how much the little £5 micro computer has changed, I was in for a shock. They still make a £5 desktop computer called "Raspberry pi zero" they also have a slightly better computer called the "Raspberry pi zero w" and you get change from £10. What blew my mind was the "Raspberry Pi 4", a credit card sized computer that has more computing power than the desktop computer I put together 6 years ago. 

what I am saying is a little £35 credit card sized computer does everything my old desktop computer does. It has a standard x86 system so it will run any operating system that can boot from an SD card. Someone even managed to get windows 10 to run on it. 

They make their own Operating system for it, they renamed it Rasberry pi os, a type of Linux. It is a single board fanless mini computer that is cheap and powerful, my mind is blown. Everything is on the circuit board, the ram, processor, grachics controller, sound card, network card. All stiched together and ready to run. 

You need to go to Rasberrypi.org website to see what I am talking about. 

Bluetooth Irony

I have a bluetooth joystick, it didn't cost much money when I bought it. It also has two modes, it can be a joystick or a mouse controller. It works with all phones and Android computers that have Bluetooth. There is also a spring loaded cradle to hold your phone in place which is useful. 

The thing that amazes me is what games support bluetooth joysticks and what what ones don't. I played commander keen on Android, a side scrolling adventure game from the 90s. The developer put the original ROM for the game in a DOS emulator, the emulator works with bluetooth joysticks so I was able to play commander keen on my smart TV box and phone with my bluetooth joystick. But "call of Duty mobile edition" doesn't seem to support bluetooth controllers so I guess they just expect everyone to poke their screen the whole time. It would seem to be the other way around, you would expect "Call of Duty" to be the game that supports Bluetooth controllers but it isn't it is the ported commander keen games that works with it. 

I talk to machines every day

One thing I do every day is talk to machines. I talk to my phone and to my smart speaker. 

My smart speaker understands my speech and answers me. My smart speaker is hooked up to an encyclopedia and a dictionary and it is very good a maths and logic. If there is anything I don't know I find out straight away. Someone told me they have fibromyalgia so I said "Alexa, what is fibromyalgia"? The smart speaker then told me what Fibromyalgia is. I was advised to wait 50 days to do something by a doctor  so I asked Alexa what date it will be in 50 days and the smart speaker told me what date it would be straight away. I asked my smart speaker what is 250 divided by 7 is and it told me. Very often when I get home from work I feel frustrated because things always go wrong one way or another so I ask my smart speaker to play Dion Warwick, she was before my time but her voice is very smooth and soothing. Other times I just ask for the news. My smart speaker knows the difference between me and my wife and responds with our names. It says ok Alan here is the news or ok cinthya, here is the news. 

I don't think it would ever understand someone from Birmingham in England, no machine or humans can understand them. They need subtitles when they appear on the news. 

The other day the sun was shining very brightly and I couldn't see my phone screen so I asked Google to turn the screen brightness up 100%, my phone responded by turning the brightness up 100%. When the power went off I asked my phone to turn on the flashlight and it did it, it turned on the flashlight. I also ask my phone things I don't know just like my smart speaker and it answers me. 

Water War

One thing I think is being overlooked right now in the world is what I call a water war in the Pacific. 

China is sending military vehicles into and over territorial waters of other countries and claiming that it is either open ocean or belongs to them. This is happening in Taiwan quite often and some of the small Philippine Islands. Some island nations in the Pacific Ocean seem to have a problem with China. It would be an equivalent to America claiming that the waters just 250 meters off the coast of Venezuela belong to the United States and sending aircraft carriers to patrol it. 

Right now there is a lot of tension in the Pacific Ocean. I just wonder how long this will go on for until a true Pacific war kicks off. Perhaps this would be the starting place of world war 3. 

Alexander the Scum

If I told you there was a man that hacked thousands of people to death with a sword so he could be exalted as a ruler and that he killed his friend because he refused to call him a God, would you call him Great? What if I told you that all he actually did was kill thousands of people because of him and his ambition, would you not compare him to hitler and call him a scum? 

Well, Alexander the Great was that man. Why do we call him Great? 

Did he create a medicine that saved thousands of lives? no! 

Did he invent a machine that made everyone's lives easier? No! 

Did he sacrifice himself to help mankind? No! 

Did he help starving people to eat? No

What did he do? Killed loads of people and ruled over their communities. That's it!!!! 

Please correct me if I'm wrong. I get things wrong quite often.