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.