What January 2021 means to me

In January 2021, my country was still in a winter Lockdown to slow down the spread of Covid19 virus particles. I felt shame and pity in January because I learned that Britain has the highest rate of Covid19 deaths in the world. Over 100,000 Brits were killed by the virus, yet our population is less than 70 million. So many Brits were infected that the virus mutated into a more lethal fast spreading strain. I felt shame that we failed to stop the virus from doing so much damage, some so called developing countries managed to stop the virus completely. I felt pity because all those people had family and friends that lost a loved one too soon. 

January was also the month when Joseph Biden was elected president of the United States of America. I don't support any political group in this world, I just listen and observe.  I wish him good luck. 

All I would do is be more Alan. I play card games on my phone and and create many things inside my head. I would watch Netflix and youtube playlists and daydream about being in a position where I can nurture all my hobbies and try not to think about what I can't control. 

I keep my chin up for Spring and hope for happier times. 

Fake Cheese

The thing that is stopping me from being a Vegan is cheese and the fact they add milk & egg to so many starchy foods that I like. I like to eat pizza and can eat macaroni cheese like Popeye the sailor man eats his spinach, sort of. 

The last few days I tried some fake Cheese slices and made some sandwiches. To be honest it didn't quite taste like cheese, there was something missing from the flavour. It turns out that they don't add much salt to fake Cheese, that is the key. In real cheese they add a lot of salt. I smeared some salty water on the cheese slices and found that they taste very close to real cheese. That is what cheese is about, it is soft, viscous, smelly and salty. 

I am a vegetarian and ½ Vegan if that makes sense. I try not consume dairy products directly but I will eat a biscuit that has milk or agg added to it. I am waiting for fake Cheese to be very common. Soon...

Important Breakthroughs

There are several things that will change the world dramatically despite seeming to be trivial. I wait patiently for a genius to solve the puzzle and change the world. 

I wait for the low cost high capacity battery, a power cell that can store one thousand amperes (one million Milli amperes) and cost less than £25. Electric cars would become very cheap and houses could store surplus solar power to use overnight. At the moment lithium iron power cells are very expensive. The ones that power cars cost as much as a small car on their own. Electricity would become very cheap overall, perhaps as low as 4 pence per killowatt-hour, at the moment most Brits pay about 10 pence per killowatt-hour. 

I also wait for the cure to Alzheimer's disease, that is a brain disease that causes a person's memory to stop working. I met a person that didn't even know their own name and they didn't know where they lived, it is a very nasty disease and can be cured if someone finds a way to remove the damaged proteins that build up on the brain tissue. 

Then there is cancer, everyone knows how bad cancer is. If there was a drink that kills all cancer cells without harming the healthy ones then that would be an amazing breakthrough. 

Human Biology Tampering

I don't like the idea of tampering with human DNA. I think it is wrong to change human DNA and add a so called improvement to the human body. 

In the world of science I think there is 3 things they should focus on, finding a cure for...

1) Alzheimer's disease

2) Cancer

3) Aids virus 

To me that is the best thing science can do, find cures for those nasty diseases. 

Winter lockdown

It is winter and we are still on lockdown and I have been informed that my country will remain on lockdown for February. I recently learned that the British version of Covid19 is about 30% more lethal than the original one. I try to remain busy and stay active. I have got to keep my mind in a good state.  

Hopefully by spring there will be enough people vaccinated to stop the disease and my spring can be stress free for the first time in 4 years. Every spring something has happened that has caused me to be quite stressed. Last spring we were on lockdown, the spring before that my son was born and I was waiting helplessly but luckily he was ok, I thank God. 

Let's see what happens. 

Shame, Pity and Squares

I recently learned that 100,000 Brits have been killed by Covid19, that is the highest on planet Earth by rate. Only about 4 or 5 other countries have a higher death rate and they have very large populations compared to us. The feeling I get is shame and pity; I feel shame that we failed to stop the virus from doing so much damage, I also feel pity because all those dead people have friends and family that have lost a love one too early. I have ideas that may stop the disease but I am a transparent ordinary man with no status in society. What can I do? I wear a mask and stay at home as much as possible and wait for the disease to go away. 

Earlier in the week I was trying out the mapping and natigation software called 'what 3 words'. It divides the planet up into 3 meter squares and gives them unique 3 word names that were randomly selected for example, the prime minister's porch is called 'slurs.this.shark'. some of the squares names are quite amusing, every home and business premises intersects with several 'what 3 words' squares. 

Titan miracle

The second largest moon in the solar system is called 'Titan'. It orbits Saturn and is the largest moon in the Saturn system. If you were to stand on the surface of Titan, you wouldn't need a space suit because it has a Nitrogen atmosphere that is thicker than Earth's, all you would need is very warm clothing and a resperator. If Titan wasn't orbiting Saturn, it would be called a planet. Titan has seas or large lakes made of Methane and Ethane, chemicals that are gasses here on Earth. It has rivers and coastlines and beaches formed by liquid hydrocarbons. Titan was able to keep an atmosphere because it is inside Saturn's magnetic field so the solar wind was deflected away. 

I wonder if many people know that Saturn's largest moon 'Titan' exists and why it is so special. People know a lot of things, they know statements made by politicians from 15 years ago, they know who is married to their favourite singer and the lyrics to all their songs. Isn't it more amazing that there is a moon that has seas of liquid Methane, Methane rain, mountains and valleys carved by flowing Methane and even a thick atmosphere that is 50% thicker than here on Earth?

Mortal Combat Potus Biden

President Biden was formerly declared president of the United States of America. I don't support any political group in the world and try not have an opinion about them. I wish Joseph Biden and Kamala Harris good luck and breakthroughs in the years to come. I learned that Kamala Harris is the first female vise president and first vice president of Jamaican and Indian descent. They can probably give her a whole page in the Guinness book of world records. That is very cool in my book, excuse the pun. 

It was on the day of the Potus ceremony that I looked at a trailer of a computer game called mortal Kombat 11 on my phone, I was shocked by what I saw. The violence in the game was so extreme, it reminded me of the time when I saw a video of an execution before it was sensored by social media. In mortal combat 11, the loser is killed, their head is kicked off or their spine is pulled out or their heart is pulled out of their chest or they are chopped to pieces. I don't play those sort of games, I play puzzle games or games where you build things so I always had a positive view of computer games, now I'm not sure. I feel like they are too violent and may cause people to have a  violent sadistic nature. 

Multiplex Revenue

I have an idea in my head that may help society a little bit. What I would do is multiplex a school building so it is partitioned into apartments and a school. The building would be bigger than the original school building but the school itself would remain the same size. The two areas would be physically isolated and it would be possible for tenants and students to be oblivious that other is present. 

The tenants in the flats would pay cheap rent, the profit from their rent payments would support some of the costs of the public sector like police and teacher's wages. The building would have solar panels on the roof so it would get power from sunlight and sell the surplus power back to the grid so it would also be carbon negative. The premises of a school would have many uses, it would help the environment, collect rent revenue from tenants, it would slow down the inflation in living costs because the demand for appartments would drop down and it would also be a place to teach young people essential skills. 

Repetitive mind

From my perspective, being human is about being repetitive and thinking the same thoughts over and over again. In the second half of December and first half of January, I was often watching videos on YouTube of people playing golf in virtual reality and wondering when I would buy a specialised VR headset like the Oculus rift so I can play golf in VR myself. 

I was also thinking about oven cooking in microwave ovens and conventional ovens. I was thinking how the stoneware cooking bowl I use works well in both. I cook most of my food in clay jars with Pyrex glass lids. My cooking is very simple fast and cheap. I heat the food up then I add something to it to make it taste nice like 'peri peri lemon and herb sauce' or gravy. I toast frozen slices of bread from a frozen loaf that was reduced to 20p and add marmalade to the toast. That is what being Alan is all about, being very boring to most people and feeling fine with being labelled boring or dull by the majority. 

Wearing a mask

We are in a pandemic of a disease that spreads through the air so when I go into an enclosed space like a shop, I wear a face mask over my mouth and nose. It is the rule to wear a mask but even if they said it is not compulsory, I would still wear one. At first I had issues with covering my nose because it would cause my glasses to fog up, but then I found a way to stop condensation forming on my glasses, what I do is I pull the edge of my mask under my glasses and press my glasses down on the fabric, that usually stops the condensation. It is my understanding that the viruses can't propel themselves, the mask scatters the flow of air as I breathe out and that causes any virus particles to fall on the floor straight away so they can't spread by being suspended in the air as much. The mask won't stop me catching viruses but it will make any viruses I have fall on the floor more quickly, some of the viruses will still manage to stay suspended in the air but most of them will fall on the floor straight away in less than 2 meters because my mask has scattered the air flow from my mouth and nose into an erratic non linear spurt. That is why I wear a face mask in public places. 

Don't you feel cold

In my job I move around quite a lot and I have a lot of fat under my skin so I wear a t-shirt all year, in both winter and summer. People will often ask me if I feel cold, they say "don't you feel cold?". I see them wearing a jumper and I think, don't they feel hot? But then I think that they wouldn't wear a jumper if they were hot, they are different to me. 

Sometimes they will ask the same question on two or three different days, the answer is no, I don't feel cold. If I put a jumper on at work then I will feel too hot and sweat a lot and my t-shirt would be stuck to my skin. When people ask me the same question twice it probably means they think I don't know what is good for me. They are wrong, I know what happens when I wear a jumper at work, I get too hot and slow down, not good. 

Two Hours of Snow

Earlier today it snowed in my town and at my work place for about 2 hours, then the snow turned into rain. Surely the climate must be changing slightly. It shouldn't be raining this time of the year, it should all fall as snow. There is less frost and less snow every year. When the fossil fuels run out then it will be very cold at winter and people will need to buy thicker coats. In the morning I saw another accident with a truck and a car on the duel carriage way and a man was walking on the road, perhaps to pick up some debris but he seemed careless like he wasn't looking at the road, plus it is a motorway.

Car crash

On my way to work I today I saw the aftermath of a car crash, a white BMW and and dark blue SUV. They were blocking half the road. I recognized the vehicles, they were drivers that get annoyed that I am in front of them because I follow the speed limit. I don't know why white BMWs are so popular these days but they are. Those sort of cars would be wasted on me because I don't accelerate very much. 

I guess you could call me captain slow. 

A moment free of thought

Sometimes the best thing in this world is the point in time when I'm not thinking, just sitting quietly and holding the top of my head in my hand while I sip some coffee and watch something interesting on TV. It is a moment in time when I am free of thoughts, thinking of nothing, just watching a video about interesting things and listening to the tumble dryer turning over and blowing air through the clothes. The darkness of the winter world outside is far away and I curl up into the smallest space possible and enjoy the moment of nothingness. 

Oven cooking

I think the most efficient way to cook food is to put everything into ceramic stoneware bowls with the lid on and place them in the oven.  Most British ovens have 3 shelves so it should be easy to have 6 ceramic cooking bowls. I like the ones with Pyrex glass lids.

Many British ovens are fan assisted, this means all 3 shelves are the same temperature because the fan pushes the air around the oven. If I set the oven to 200°c then I will know the bottom shelf will be 200°c as well as the top. If I had a large family I could cook everything in the oven, even the rice or pasta. I think you can turn off fan assistance in some ovens, that way the top shelf will be more hot then the lower shelves. Once the oven has reached the target temperature, the flame dips down small. This means I can cook 6 items on one small flame, there is nowhere for the heat to go, it slowly seeps out through the corrugated metal panels with air pockets between the sheets. 

Solitaire on the phone

On every phone I have ever owned apart from my first phone, I always put a card game on it. Card games are not very demanding, they don't need very much graphics or computing power to run. 

This is the card game on my current phone...

I play it when I have to wait or just want to sleep. When the cards are moved they make a crude card sliding sound effect. Solitaire is a puzzle card game and the aim of the game is to sort all the cards into type and ascending order while following the rules. If you want to know the rules, look it up. I use just one thumb to manipulate the cards. 

Sip and Play

A big part of everyday life for me is making a playlist for later on YouTube. What I do is I scroll through YouTube videos and click on the save button. 

The default playlist is called watchlater. The smart droid part of my TV is connected to my google profile so I can play through the playlist I created on my phone infront of the TV while I sip some tea or coffee. Or I can play the playlist while I try to sleep. 

VR Golf

To me, one of the best things you can do on virtual reality is play golf. In VR golf the weather is always nice, you can teleport to where the ball is just by pointing and you can have a stats pane float Infront of your face. Plus you don't pay any money to play. In real golf, if you only have 45 minutes of free time, you can't play because it will take you time just to get to the golf course. In virtual reality golf you can play for 10 minutes and pause the game for later. 

I have my mind set on buying an occulous rift so I can play golf myself. There are a bunch of golf games on there, golf games you can play with friends through the internet, golf games with crisp graphics and challenging play for more serious golfers, they even have multiplay crazy golf. I have been watching the videos on YouTube. 

Microwave cooking

Very often when I am cooking food I will use a ceramic clay cooking bowl with a Pyrex glass lid and a microwave. What I do is I put prepared vegetables into the bowl without any water. Then I put the bowl with the lid on in the microwave for 12 & ½ minutes or 15 minutes if the vegetables are frozen. I like the way the water released from the vegetables steam cooks the veg. There is nowhere for the heat to go quickly so it builds up inside the bowl, the steam gets heated more and more and blasts the veg and escapes the lid under pressure. To me this is a very efficient way to cook vegetables. When the vegetables are done, I make some gravy and pour it onto the vegetables. I don't like using the hob to cook food because the heat escapes very quickly. 

Confusion Reflux

Today I watched a video of a man praying, at the end of the prayer he said, "Amen and A-women". I don't think the word 'amen' is connected to gender.  The word 'Amen' means true or I agree in the old Hebrew language, A-women' has no meaning at all. Why stop with 'Amen'? Why not replace all words that contain the word 'men' with 'women'. We could replace 'mental' with 'womental'. We could replace 'sentiment' with 'sentiwoment', "Experiment' could be 'Experiwoment', 'menstruate' could be 'womenstruate', 'mentor' could be 'womentor'. 

The logic of changing words into meaningless sounds because of so called gender equality reminds me of what us Brits were doing last march. We decided that we would respond to the Epidemic with herd immunity, this means we would let half a million people die and wait for the disease to go away. We changed our mind towards the end of the month after significant numbers of people were infected and our hospitals were getting overwhelmed, by the end of the month the epidemic had become a pandemic infection but we kept the airport open the whole time and didn't try to quarantine travellers. It didn't help that many Brits didn't believe the disease was real, they thought it was a hoax to make us prisoners in our homes or cover up 5g side effects or some nonsense like that. They ignored all the measures we were taking and super spreaded the virus all over the place. 

Winter Lockdown

It is the start of 2021 and the Pandemic infection of 2020 is still here and is more efficient at infecting people, there is two vaccines available, the astra Zenika one that is made in Oxford, it doesn't need to be stored below -70°c. We also have the Pfizer one. Britain was returned to lockdown for 2 months because the hospitals are  being overwhelmed. My country is fighting a more efficient version of Covid19 with a lockdown and mass vaccinations. 

Lockdown messes with people's head because we don't know if our job will persist  or if we will get sick and our freedom to move about for liesure is taken away. I miss going out to places and mingling with my extended family and friends. I miss walking around a shopping mall and sitting in a café and drinking a super strong coffee. This pandemic has made me more interested in virtual reality. In virtual reality you can play golf with your friends in a quaint golf course with perfect weather every time free of charge. In virtual reality you can go into cartoons and look around. You can go to places that are Normally off limits  like Buckingham palace or hostile exoplanets. There are countless worlds to explore in virtual reality and there are countless quests. At the moment my only virtual reality is through my phone using a headset that holds the phone in place and has special plastic lenses. There are specially designed systems available and even rigs that let you walk around without actually moving( like a treadmill). 

Virtual Reality is the new social breakthrough. 

VR tour

At the time of writing this blog post, many people reading this post don't realize they already have virtual reality on their smartphone . All they need to do is get a VR phone holder to hold their phone infront of their face, the basic ones cost about £5 (five loaves of bread). You need an app on your smartphone for Virtual Reality, the YouTube app already supports virtual reality, you just select 360° format videos in the filter and press the VR icon to split the screen into 2. The YouTube app will use the phone's tilt sensors to track your head movements. 

Last night I expored 6 exoplanets in virtual reality, it was amazing. They were all very different, although they were computer generated images and not the real thing. The more immersive software requires specialised hardware so if you want to play golf in virtual reality or explore open worlds by walking then you have to invest in more expensive hardware like the 'Oculus rift'. 

Strange Start

It is the start of 2021, it is winter and very cold. On the first night of 2021 I did something I never did before, I fell asleep in virtual reality. What I did was I put youtube on virtual reality mode and put my phone in the VR headset. I then lay down in bed watching a very long youtube playlist. My phone was connected to my Bluetooth earphones so my senses were cut off from my room. Then after two hours I woke up again half way through the playlist, it was a video of a man playing golf in virtual reality, I was watching someone play golf in virtual reality while I was in virtual reality, there is some irony someware. The play list was the 'watchlater' default playlist for saving videos to watch later. My 'watchlater' playlist on YouTube is very long, usually about 5 or 6 hours of video. 

Youtube has two types of virtual reality mode, it has vr mode for normal videos and it has 360 format videos. I put a playlist as normal format videos into VR mode. They appear as a TV screen  in a darkened room and I can turn my head away from the screen, if I press the select button then it will recenter the large virtual TV screen in the darkened room in front of my face. I don't think it's a good idea to fall asleep in virtual reality, someone could burgle my home while I am in virtual reality and I would be oblivious.