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.