Last bit of November

It is the last bit of November, the word at the dinner table at the moment is Omicron variant. The theme this month is gun related court and a sick winter. 

 A new variant of Covid19 has emerged from South Africa, they are calling it the Omicron variant. We don't know very much about it, only that it spreads very fast and the spike protein is different so it may escape antibodies from our current vaccines. It is also winter so there is less UV light to destroy the virus particles. It is our first winter with the Delta Variant so it is very challenging at the moment. I don't know what is going to happen but I stay optimistic that it will be better than last year; I feel like there has been no normal for the last 2 years. To visit hospitality places, we need to book a 15 minute time slot, even if the venue is free entry and everything is done with caution and spacing out in mind. 

Windy day and night

Jacob, My son. 

It is winter now, we are coming to terms with the Delta Variant and the new more dangerous variant of Covid19 virus that has just recently emerged from South Africa. 

One thing I have learnt from the Pandemic is when everyone is sick and broke, the bad guys make a move. There has been several power coups around the world and a few that are about to happen. The virus is acting like a catalyst, speeding up events that were set to happen in the future. You could say that pandemics are like triggers of a chain reactions. I'm not saying it is always like that though. 

High profile Court

I'm not a young man and I am not old, you could call me a mature adult, somewhere between youth and middle age. I'm old enough and wise enough to know it is wrong to have an instant reaction to the outcome of a high profile court case. The most recent one is the Kyle Rittenhouse case. 

When I was young I saw people mocking the elderly lady for suing McDonald's for a million dollars because she burnt herself with coffee. Later in life I learned that she didn't Sue McDonald's for a million dollars, she sued for the cost of her skin graft surgery because the drink was over 90°c and it caused third degree burns . Regulations were in place to protect people from third degree burns and the thermostat on the coffee machine was broken so it was belching out hot coffee at close to boiling point. Anyway the judge wanted to teach McDonald's a lesson so he increased the compensation charge. You see how the outcome sounds different when you know all the facts. The same is true of the OJ Simpson case, we later found out that someone already was trying to kill his wife and the gloves used when the gun was fired was too small for OJ Simpson's hands and there was countless other facts that the jury saw that wasn't public at the time. 

Beluga Whale

Some years ago I learned that Killer whales are not whales, they are actually a giant dolphin species. I thought that same is true of Beluga whales because they look like dolphins; I was wrong. Beluga whales are whales. They grow about 5 meters long and weigh about one thousand KG. 

In my view they are the one animal that looks the most like they came out of a cartoon. They are small whales that looks like they jumped out of an animation. They are one of the few whales I know of that have swam up the river Thames and visited London city, that is not a joke, it really happened. I consider Killer whales and Beluga whales to be people, they are sentient and have complicated languages. 

Winter Thoughts

It is the end of Autumn and the start of Winter. Some significant events that stand out are HS2 and the Kyle Rittenhouse court case. 

Kyle Rittenhouse was found not guilty in court; Many people were criticizing the Judge and the court. The truth is the Verdict is decided by the jury not the judge. The Jury had access to all the facts so they had a better position to make a verdict than us. I saw a young man that was being condemned by the world and then spared by reasoning from the jury of a court, his breathing was that of the wind in a tree, restless and at peace, finally given relief, that huge axe of condemnation was shifted away. As more and more evidence emerged, ordinary people like myself saw that he was defending himself and trying to stop rioters from destroying his town  where he worked. He supported the protests but was concerned about rioters burning everything up. The prosecution found no evidence that he or his close family and friends were white supremacists, even when they took his phone and looked through his social media history. 

I am skeptical of the HS2 railway project in Britain. I think the £96 billion could be spent on the existing railways we already have and the trains they are building are already old technology. I would spend that money building a box around the train tracks that collects sunlight and wind energy. I would build the boxes on the railways with diesel powered trains first so they could be converted to electric trains at the same time. If they did it that way, they would be fixing three problems with the same project, we still have diesel powered trains, we need to be net zero CO2 emmiters by 2050 and our railways are too expensive to run so the commuters are paying too much. In my view, building another railway is not the answer. 

Waukesha Rampage

A few days ago, a guy called Darrell Brooks drove his car into a crowd of people killing about 5 at a Christmas parade. I think they just let the man out of prison. I'm not sure it is a reaction to the Rittenhouse acquittal. I think he had a lot of issues with society and the authorities. He seemed to hate Donald Trump a lot in rap songs that he wrote. 

Anyway, I respect all votes; I think all politicians are forced to lie to get elected because they are uncertain the cabinet would accept their proposals but they have to sound confident. I don't support any political group on this blog in this time period. I just listen. 

This whole planet is a mess, every community in the world is fragmented in some way and there is very little peace of mind for the people that live amongst them. It is only trade of goods and services that is keeping all the whole world from fighting itself. If God didn't give us reasoning to cooperate, we would have no peace at all. 

Kyle Rittenhouse acquitted

This week a young teenaged man called Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted of homicide, he shot dead two men during a riot in his town. His defence was that he acted in self defence. The court room process was shown on television. I have questions myself, if it was self defence then why was he carrying a gun already? Why didn't he fire a warning shot first before he shot the two men?  The Rittenhouse debate will last a long time, perhaps as long as the OJ Simpson murder debate did. The world is grim but there is a lot to talk about at the dinner table. 

The other big topic to debate would be if Americans should ban guns. I'm in two minds about the issue; In Myanmar last spring there was a military coup, the military arrested the elected leader and took control of the country, if the same thing happened in the USA, the community would overpower the military because millions of armed Americans would attack the tyrant with their weapons. No tyrant would be able to stay in power in America because so many ordinary Americans have weapons. On the other hand, you have people shooting other people because they have a gun and they want to be the first to shoot and some people can't control their temper so they will shoot someone because of a spurt of anger. Guns make it too easy to kill I say. It is hard to tell what is right, I rarely have a strong opinion about anything. 

I think that most gun deaths in America are from suicide, if they didn't have guns they would kill themselves another way, perhaps from falling or something like that. I think humans are more likely to kill themselves than another person. There are more suicides in the world than homicides, I'm not sure it will stay that way though. 

Roku And Me

In this life there are many things that cause unhappiness, I see people sticking their phone cameras into police officer's face and telling them how to do their job, things like that. As for me, I want to focus on the things in this world that make me happy. 

I have a Bluetooth headset and a Roku smart stick on my TV. I like to use the Roku phone app to send the sound from a TV documentary on Netflix to my phone, my phone would be connected to my blue tooth headphones so I could be listening to the TV program wirelessly through my headphones. The Picture would be on the TV, and the sound would be on my headphones, and I would be doing some routine tasks and I wouldn't be disturbing anyone. 

The amazing thing is all those things doesn't use much power, my phone receives sound from the router and then sends it to the blue tooth headphones and uses less power than if I connected headphones directly through a wire. Blue tooth sound uses less power then a physical auxiliary cable. To me that is amazing. 

Rainy Night

Jacob, My son. 

One thing I hope you can do better than me is clear your head. Sometimes if there is a problem, it will repeat over and over and over again inside my head until I get a headache and then it will continue. The best thing to do is pray and support a few hobbies. When you have something to focus on then that will definitely help; A nice little hobby to keep your mind level. Talking also helps, talk to your cousins and uncle and us. There are so many things in life that can cause stress, waiting for a result, health, things going wrong, lost items, crimes. I hope you can keep your chin up better than me when things go wrong. I already have grey hair, and I'm in my 30s. 

 I talk to a machine every day, I speak to our smart speaker, I ask the smart speaker many things like the meaning of words and what the weather is like. I ask for the news every morning to know what is going on and things like that. Sometimes I just ask it to play the radio. 

Peace my son. Peace... 

Just thoughts

The most common thought I have is what will I eat next. Then I think about death because I don't really know what happens when we die. If consciousness stops then even darkness does not exist and I would be oblivious to the flow of time. A million years could pass by and I wouldn't know. I think about God quite often. I wonder why I am in this world. 

Other times I just think of things. Just happy fluffy little things that don't quite work. Things I want to make and test. Some people have an ego that is so big that nothing will make them happy. Not me, my ego is moderate, I am happy by default. 

Exposure of Sleaze

A common theme of this year is the exposure of  sleaze. We had cabinet leaders having extra marital escapades in their office when they were supposed to be spaced out and have some integrity to their family. We had blue chip companies that put profit before community wellbeing. There were MPs in parliament that were lobbying for companies they were working for at the same time while they were in office. Then there was the Panama Papers. I will say no more. If we have any more leaked documents, I'll have to call the plumber; I know my jokes are dry. 

It is almost as if the Pandemic is acting like a catalyst. It is speeding up events that would have taken years. People were dying before their time. There was a few military coups around the world and insiders have leaked out reports about corruption and sleaze. Everything is happening now in 2021. The world is changing so fast. 

Happy thoughts

There is a lot of chaos all around us and life is sometimes very hard. I thought it would be a good idea if I share a thought process that helps me get through the day. The way I think gives me comfort because it displaces sad thoughts. It consumes my mind and takes away space for unhappy thoughts. 

A snapshot of a thought inside my head, a energy machine that doesn't work. 

What I do is make machines inside my head. This machine doesn't work, there is a bottleneck in the design that stops it from working, I try very hard to solve the problem but I will only really have hope if I can build a prototype. Then I dream of being free to build prototypes, I need the space, tools and time to do it. I have none of those things. I have no space, time or tools to build things like that. 

This thought process would probably fix rich people's problems as well because some of them feel hollow or bored with their success according to their auto biographies. If I was rich I would never be bored or hollow inside because I would see my wealth as a tool to do my hobbies properly. I would have a workshop where I build test rigs and experimental machines. I think some wealthy people are unhappy because they try to get joy from buying things but the real joy would be from what you do not what you have. You would get bored with a mega Yacht or a farrari eventually but you won't get bored with a hobby that you are passionate about.

Alan Thing

I would love to have something in my home that takes pennys from visitors. Here in the UK our base currency is the British Pound £. The 1p coin is one 100th of £1. The 2p coin is one 50th of £1. 

I don't know why but I like to take a pouch full of pennys and use them on self service till machines. I may have £8 worth of pennys in a pouch and have shopping that costs £10, I would then use my card to finish the balance. The self service till machine is very patient, it doesn't mind if I have hundreds of pennys; I would be putting them in one at a time then I would press the pay by card tab to finish the balance with my bank card and would pay the £2. Most self service machines can take mixed payment but not all of them. I know which shops have the machines that take mixed payments and the ones that don't. I feel satisfied when I dump a heavy mass of coins into a self service machine. 

Perhaps I can get a novelty coin pusher like the one they had in the arcades but smaller. 

It is an Alan Thing. 

Dormant Hobbies

At the moment I only get time and space to maintain 2 hobbies, Drawing and Blogging. Drawing is possible because it doesn't take up much time and space. I merged my two active hobbies together so I bring my sketches into my blog, my drawing and blogging are one. 

Many of my sketches don't make any sense, only an old version of myself will understand the message they convey; I just leave them in plain sight. Other sketches are more clear and the message they convey is clear. 

I would love to get back into my dormant hobbies, making videos and things. I love to make things, I love to make cardboard models and test rigs but I don't have the space or the time to do them. My you tube channel has been without new content for about 6 months now. 

Welcome Luna

The newest member of our Family, Luna was born about a month ago, she had all of her hair and she seemed to look around the room early on. I pushed my limited drawing skills as far as they will go and did a pencil and pen sketch of her at one month old. 

Luna and Nathan are both Pandemic babies. They were born during the Covid19 Pandemic. My son has gained two cousins in recent months, Luna and Nathan the Pandemic pair. I don't think they would like that title though. 

COP26

Over the years I have realized that every part of our world is run by energy. If I write a book, the computer I write the book on is powered by electricity, the machine that prints the book is powered by electricity, if the book is electronic then the server that hosts the book is also powered by electricity. If I buy food, a vehicle had to bring the food to the shop and it had to burn fuel. Every single transaction is powered by energy. Our whole society is powered by fossil fuels. 

I watched some of the COP26 conference on TV through the internet and thought that the world leaders have the wrong idea about how to tackle climate change. It shouldn't be about investing vast amounts of money to change our energy use. It should be about finding a cheap way to do it. We need to find a cheap way to make solar panels and a cheap way to make high capacity batteries to store surplus power and release it to the grid later. 

In my view, I'm not surprised that China and Russia didn't show up, they don't want to be pressured to invest in wind farms and solar energy systems too much. There are many ordinary people like myself that want to change the world but we can't because we live ordinary lives without the means to change anything. 

What October 2021 Means To Me

At the start of October my extended family gained a new girl called Luna. I was very worried about my sister in law and her partner but the child birth was fine and Luna was born safely. There are now 2 Pandemic babies in our family, Nathaniel on my brother's side and Luna on my wife's side, they are spaced out by about 10 months. 

Throughout this month, a volcano on the Canary Island of 'La Palma' was continuously erupting and caused a lot of damage to the towns. I also learned that the Canary Islands isn't in the Mediterranean sea, it is in the Atlantic Ocean and is part of Africa. They are Spanish islands but they sit on the African continent. I learn something new every day. 

The elected leader of Southend town, 'David Amass' campaigned for Southend to be reclassified as a city for many years, in the middle of October on the 15th, he was assassinated by a Terrorist. As a tribute to the politician, the house of Commons in parliament asked the Queen to reclassify Southend as a city, she agreed. On June next year during the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, the Queen will declare Southend a City. Southend is the nearest coastal town to London. Last summer my son had his first day trip to the coast in Southend. The coastal town of Southend is on the Thames Estuary, the place where the sea and the river Thames converge. 

Then the leaders of the world headed for Glasgow in Scotland to make promises about when they will bring their nation's net CO2 emissions to Zero, the meeting was for this week. Lots of big promises are being made right now. Let's see what happens.