Folly and Shame

Not too long ago a famous British Journalist claimed that his cells hate Lady Meghan Markel. Also Elon sort-of demoted himself as the chief executive of Twitter with a twitter poll. Twitter is never a happy place, the best I get from it is nothing or a like from family. Sometimes I get trolled. I have no time for trolls, I just block them straight away. I don't really care much about twitter. I wouldn't miss it if they blocked me from the platform. 

The thing that grieves me is atrophy and death. I know that some people are going to freeze to death during this winter, a slow painful and scary death. I can't do anything for them. I'm just an ordinary man. I also worry about the people in my family that are getting very old; it haunts me every day. I think about death every day for a short time, usually about 3 minutes, sometimes more. I often remember accidentally seeing an execution of a murderer convict, she was beheaded. I still remember the horrible stress and anger in her voice as she protested her innocence, then the silence when the sword came down. 

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Warm Snap

In recent weeks there was unusually warm weather. At the start of winter, the temperature went down to -7 °C in my home town where I live. In other parts of Britain it was around -10°C. Soon after the temperature increased to around plus 10°C, a change of about 20°C. To me this was a stroke of luck because heating our homes has become very expensive. God answers prayers. 

Sadly I know that some people have given up keeping their homes warm and turned their heating off, they were wearing jumpers and coats in their own home. They're in danger of freezing to death, their homes have become like coffins. I don't know how long this warm spell will last for. I hope the whole of winter is like this. I don't want to learn of people freezing to death in their homes. 

I would advise people that can't afford to heat their homes to turn the thermostat to 7°c so their pipes don't freeze and burst open. Then they can use an electric blanket on their sofa and bed. Electric blankets don't use much power. They could also perch their toaster infront of them and turn it on with no bread, the plume of heat would help and electric toasters don't use much power. I would also advise putting potatoes in the microwave. Jacket potatoes store a large amount of heat, the heat would spread out from the microwave and help a bit, plus potatoes are full of starch, lots of energy. 

Keep your chin up guys. Let's stay hopeful of a bright 2023. 

Twitter Exposure

In recent days we have learnt of some scandal about twitter. They we taking bribes from Government staff to sensor dirt about them. They were censoring news reports about the hunter laptop scandal because they were paid to do it. 

This story should be a press earthquake but the news organisations are barely discussing it. Censorship was being weaponized, it wasn't just a tool to stop people organising violence, or teaching other people to harm themselves, it was being used to silence freedom of speech. This is so wrong. 

They won't need to assassinate him though, people are already brainwashed. They will say "Republican Bad" and punch people in the face for wearing a MAGA cap. 

But Abraham Lincoln the slavery abolisher president was a Republican ... "Republican Bad". But the Republicans changed the law so minorities could vote... "Republican Bad". But the Democrats want to increase the birth control abortion window to the 3rd Trimester, days before the baby is due to be born... "Republican Bad". Donald Trump was boasting about how his party increased employment in Black and Hipsanic Communities... "Republican Bad". 

They're both bad. If someone votes different to you, that is ok. If you think that makes their character flawed then you are brainwashed. 

The same thing is happening here in the UK. A journalist makes a tasteless joke about member of the Royal Family, that becomes the main news and people get angry and forget there is people freezing to death in their own homes because they can't afford to keep their heating on. Brainwashed. If someone tells an offensive joke like that, stop reading their articles. Give feedback about the article and stop reading their tosh. 

Strange Dream

For a while there was many people claiming they saw a man in their dream with the same face. They call it the 'This Man' dream. 

I think I saw that face in my dream, It was Jordan Peterson telling me how to sort my life out. I watch so many of his videos on youTube. He does a lot of conferences and tries to help people sort out their lives and overcome phycological problems, he seems like a great guy. 

The problem is this world hates good things and likes the bad. Everyone seems to hate Jesus, they use his name to replace swear words and blame him for all the bad things that happen. Jesus was blameless and offers mankind the gift eternal life and bliss but they hate him. The same is true of Jordan Peterson, he is concerned about the wellbeing of the community and tries to guide people into a responsible structured life yet people seem to hate him. I don't get it. 

Argentina Wins The World Cup

Argentina have won the Qatar 2022 world cup about 7 hours ago. I watched the match. It was very close and very hair raising. The match went all the way to the penalty shootout stage. 

I watched them score 2 goals in the first half, then France equalised in the second half. Then in extra time Argentina scored, then France equalised again. The winning team was finally settled in a penalty shootout. A very exciting football match. 

French food is very popular here in Britain, we love to eat French cheese, they have a cheese for everything. Croissants are also very popular here for lunch or breakfast. Plus they make Champagne, it is like sparkling wine but it is aged slightly to give it extra flavour. I think they hand pick the grapes to ensure excellent taste. 

Mid December Thoughts

A common thought I was thinking about this month was the temperature change in the last 6 months. It went from 40°C in summer to -10°C now in parts of the UK; -7°C in my back yard.  The temperature changed by about 50°C, that is amazing. Then I was thinking that natural gas costs about 10p per kilowatt-hour at the moment so I looked for happy thoughts. Need those little happy thoughts to perk you up. 

I remembered that Roller Coaster Tycoon classic was released for android recently. I was wondering if it would run on Chromecast with Google play. I remember the good old days when I would play this game for hours on my own desktop computer. To me the fun was making everything fit together so the foot paths would would have an orderly flow to them. It was about building a well made theme park. 

The good old days 😏

Cold Day

Jacob, my son. 

You're 3 years old and it's very cold outside; the other day the temperature went down to -7°C where we live. I'm grateful that we have a nice warm home to go to because the cold outside is lethal. Everything outside gets covered in thick ice every night. My car, the grass, even the street lampposts. 

You drew this at nursery, I love everything you make. 

I never saw the world cup in winter before but it is nice. I hate the darkness at this time of year. 

When I got my first desktop computer at the turn of the millennium, I bought a game called 'Roller Coaster Tycoon'. I never got tired of playing that game, I would build many beautiful amusement parks and they would have the look and feel of SIM city. A game where you are building things is so nice, it is an alternative to misery. I think Roller coaster Tycoon is the best thing Atari ever made. 

Final Match Settled

It is very cold here in England, where I live it's -7 °c outside. There are many changes happening and many things to debate about. Right now we know the two teams that will play in the final to win the world cup. It will be Argentina or France. 

Before 6pm on Sunday we will know if Argentina or France are the winners of the world cup. The match will start at 3pm. I think I will root for France because they're close to us and I eat a lot of french food; crème Brulé, baguette sandwiches, croissants, things like that. Plus I have been to France several times before. I wonder if there will be a stalemate and they go all the way to the penalty stage. Sunday will be very interesting. 

Red Dwarf Habitat

We are going around a star known as a yellow dwarf. Our sun star lasts for about 10 billion years then it will die but it is half way through its life already. Red Dwarf stars are smaller than our sun star but they last a lot longer because they use up their fuel at a much slower rate, they are a lot more dim so planets need to be a lot closer to the star to be warm enough for water to be a liquid on the surface. The problem is the planet would need to be so close to the Red Dwarf Star that it would be tidally locked to the star so one side of the planet faces the star and the other side faces away into deep space continuously, like the far side of the moon does with the earth. 

I thought to myself that if the planet was going around a gas giant like Jupiter then it would be tidally locked to the gas giant planet instead of the star and be protected by the planet's magnetic field from powerful solar storms. 

The planet sized moon could be the size of Mars and not even have its own magnetic field. It would have a few days of the month of darkness. But the planet would be a very safe place to live I think. 

Twitter in my world

I noticed over the past month that Elon has been working on the back end side of twitter and stopping the bots spamming out Twitter feeds and stuff like that. When he gets to the front end development of twitter, I have some ideas. I know what I want from the platform.

If I was to design the twitter app it would look different to the way it is now. 

The top half of the twitter app would have a fixed screen, the whole app would reconfigure itself at the press of a button. The fixed screen would allow you to watch videos on twitter and scroll through the feed that the same time. There would also be a button below the screen that turns it into a virtual hand held games console, it would look a bit like the old game boy. 

If twitter wasn't in game mode, the screen would show  your stats like how many people are looking at your profile, between the stats it would show the twitter logo with scan lines and slight TV static. The screen would also allow you to connect to your youtube app or netflix app so you would be tweeting and reading while you're watching videos at the same time. If you play a video in your feed you can create a queue of videos that play in sequence one after the other on the screen and still scroll through your feed at the same time. If you get bored of the feed, just press the play button and it would turn your phone into a hand held games console with at least 5 fun retro games to play. 

As you scroll and press on people's tweets, it would make paper ruffling sound effects and when you press the play game mode button, it would play the sound of a panel sliding across. 

I'm not saying people would like this design feature, I only represent myself. 

Jolly Christmas

I think it will be a merry jolly Christmas this year. A happy uplifting super Christmas. Lots of festivity....

No really, It's going to be a jolly happy Christmas. 

No really, it will. Chestnuts roasting in air-fryer and music. I have a playlist here just for Christmas. Christmas Playlist. I'm not young and I'm not old, I don't know what music old people like; Hip Hop replacement music 😂 ? 

If a musician makes poor quality music track, they can add bells to it and release it again as a Christmas single. I think my Christmas drink might just be a tequila this year. 

England are out

I was hopeful that England would win the world cup but we lost to France in the Quarter finals. They played very well but the French won. We'll have to try again in the next world cup. The quarter finals were hair raising, half the games went all the way to the  penalty shootout stage. The final four teams that will play in the Semi-finals later in the week are settled. 

The four teams that will play in the Semi-finals will be Argentina, Croatia, France and Morocco. By Wednesday night we will know the two teams that will play in the finals. 

Common Thought

A very common thought inside my head is a benign hydro electric power generation system. I think wind is a waste of time, they spin for a very long time just to offset the carbon dioxide gas produced to make them before they are beneficial. This is how my benign hydro electric power system would work. 

Along the river banks there would be drains that flow into aqueducts that are below ground. The aqueduct would zigzag down the valley, following the path of the river but it would be below the ground. At certain points the subterranean aqueducts would flow through underground water wheels and cause them to spin, this would generate electricity. Then the water would flow out of the aqueduct through a drain back into the river downstream. 

There would also be butterfly valves in the ducts to stop the flow of water if power wasn't needed. The mouth of the drain would be close to the water line so it would take some of the water from the river but not too much because that would cause trouble for the fish. This system would also not cause villages to be flooded, it would do the opposite, it would help stop flooding because a lot of the water would be inside the aqueduct so it would lower the level of the river a bit and it would not get in the way of fish migrations like a dam would. 

Twitter Files

Twitter is a social media platform that lets the whole world have a big conversation. Elon Musk recently bought twitter and became the director of the company. 

Twitter has been wrestling with the fine line of 'censorship' and  'freedom of Speech' for at least ten years now. Censorship is very important; not too long ago I saw this guy eat a ghost-chilli as an internet challenge. Ghost-chillis are bred to be very concentrated with capsaicin so you could cut it into 8 pieces and the pieces would make 8 pots of stew very spicy. They were not intended to be eaten like berries. Those sort of things should be censored because people may copy it and cause harm to themselves. The other thing that should be censored is defamation, if people lie about a company and cause some of the employees to lose their jobs, things like that. 

In recent days Elon Musk has been exposing the abuse of censorship. They were using Censorship to silence people they didn't like and to cover up scandal. I don't know how far this tunnel goes but it is already very dark. He has been digging deep into the company records. 

He has coined the term Twitter Files.  

Quarter Final Teams Settled

The 8 teams that will play in the Quarter Finals over the weekend have been settled in the 16 team stage last week. Netherlands, Argentina, Croatia, Brazil, England, France, Morocco and Portugal. 

The first match will be Croatia VS Brazil on Friday at 3pm British Time. 

The Second Match with be Netherlands VS  Argentina on Friday at 7pm British time. 

The third Match will be Morocco Vs Portugal on Saturday at 3pm British Time. 

The final match of the weekend will be England Vs France on Saturday at 7pm British time. 

By Saturday night we will know the four teams that will play in the Semi-finals on Tuesday and Wednesday. It would be very nice if it is England playing Morocco or Portugal on Wednesday night but we will see. 

One weekend, four matches. 

We are through again

Last Sunday I managed to watch half of the England match with Senegal, both teams played very well. I saw England score two goals then I had to go to work. There was a third goal during the second half. 

England is through to the quarter finals and will play France on Saturday at 7pm British time. I think I will be able to watch the whole game on that day. Hopefully. 

The last two 16 team stage matches are today. Later today we will know what 8 teams have made it to the Quarter finals. 

It is winter now and very cold and dark here in Britain. It will be interesting to see who has won. 

What November 22 means to me

At the start of November, me and my family celebrated Guy Fawkes day known as Bonfire Night. I was reading the history of the day, I didn't realise that king James was a descendant of Henry the 7th (Henry the 8th's father). He descended from Henry the 7th's 3rd Child, we was like a cousin of the Tudors. King James Stuart curated the king James Bible, the first Christian Bible that was translated from Latin to English. Guy Fawkes is the celebration of the failure to blow up King James. We light fireworks and burn wood and feast outside. It is the English equivalent to the American thanks giving, a feast in the later part of Autumn. 

The theme of the second half of November was the Qatar world cup and Twitter handover. Elon walked into the twitter headquarters with a sink and said "let that sink in", that is the kind of joke I would say. For about 10 years, Twitter has been wrestling with Freedom of Speech and Censorship, both paradigms are very important. You should have the freedom to express your views but also adhere to the laws, deformation through lying, conspiring to cause a public nuisance and do violence, there is a law for all those things. Twitter was censoring many people to keep their sponsors happy but sometimes they were restricting the freedom of speech. 

During the last third of November, the Qatar world cup started, it is very unusual to have a world cup in autumn and winter, the summer time is off limits to them because it is too hot. The players could get heat stroke or something like that. It is nice to have a world cup in winter when it is cold and dark in my part of the world. The darkness can really mess with your head sometimes. 

 

Censorship Standoff

Elon Musk's Purchase of the Twitter social media platform has been completed recently. I'm given the impression that Elon is looking to increase the freedom of speech and unblock users that were considered a mischief; they wrote politically incorrect things and spread false rumours or conspiracies. They were censored by the company. I don't think it was Twitter's fault, I think they were worried about keeping their sponsors happy, they're a business at the end of the day. 

This will be a tricky one, how do you stop people spreading harmful info yet be a totally free speech platform at the same time. Perhaps they can have fact bots that tell people their message is false but leave the original message up there, I don't know. 

I hope Apple doesn't block the twitter app. Twitter hasn't changed for me because I don't follow a lot of these profiles anyway. I just write messages and hope I'm not just writing to no one. 

Funeral Brat

Yesterday I saw a video of a young lady mocking her Dad's dead body at his funeral. I thought to myself that it is very disgusting to do that. If you hate your father that much then why did you go to his funeral? I sensed that her insults were lies. She called her father a racist, xenophobe and white supremacist because he was a Donald Trump supporter. I added a link to the video at the bottom of this blog post so you can make your own judgement. I like the end of the video when one or two people tried to clap but they stopped because it was awkward. 

Her Dad's wife was a different race to him and so was she but he stuck around, a racist wouldn't do that. He gave her life and took care of her through her whole life, should that not merit some respect?  I support Donald Trump because he is against abortions and Hillary Clinton wanted to increase the birth control abortion window to the 3rd Trimester of pregnancy, days and weeks before the baby is due to be born; imagine if some stupid brainwashed kid was reading my blog now, they would think I'm a racist. You know what is xenophobic? Going to a country that is hosting the world cup, where being openly gay and promoting gay rights is illegal and disrespecting their laws and customs, that is xenophobic. I feel like young people are all brainwashed and they don't think for themselves. They're like mindless zombies. 

I think that anyone that mocks their dead parents at their funeral should be condemned by the community they live in. It is a big disgrace. The irony is that she is a racist because I saw another video of her saying she will never make friends with white people. That is racist. If you have something against your parents and you're at their funeral, keep it to yourself. Show some respect. Concentrate on the positive things. 

Funeral Brat

We are through

It is almost winter here in Britain, it is 5°c all day most days and it is getting dark very quickly but England are through to the 16 team knockout stage of the world cup. I don't ever remember having a football world cup in winter. I like the world cup being hosted in the winter. 

It is sad that two British Nations were in the same group in the world cup, Wales played well. It would be nice if they went to the 16 team knockout stage but they lost in the group stage unfortunately. 

The two best teams in group B, USA and England will play against the two best teams in group A, Netherlands and Senegal. Netherlands will play USA and England will play Senegal. 

This Sunday from 19:00 I will find out which team will get to the Quarter finals (the best 8 teams). Before that I will see if USA wins against the Netherlands this Saturday. It will be a very interesting weekend. 

So Much for free

Sometimes I am amazed by how many things are free of cost to use for individuals, they are free to use because they have figured out a way to pay the running cost without charging users directly. 

All the social media platforms that I know about are free to use, if you have a problem with them then don't use it. Foundation education here in the UK is free, medical care here in the UK is also free; they are funded by public spending but they are free at the point of service.  The Wikipedia encyclopedia is free to use, I read many articles on there and learn many things. I have learnt about history and things like that. 

I was going through the free TV apps on my smart TV stick and was amazed by how much stuff you get for free. Pluto TV, ITV player, You Tube, they are all free to use. 

There are many software platforms that are free to use. Most of the Linux based os systems are free. All the main programming development kits are also free. 

Human food chain

In recent weeks there has been bird flu outbreaks on chicken farms around the world. They reacted by quarantining the chickens and killing some of them. As far as I know this has caused a shortage of eggs. There is quite a lot of things that threatens our food supplies. 

I don't know how dangerous H1N1 viruses would be to humans if they found a way to jump to our species. I don't think about it. I thought the government should consider supplying bio hazard suits to all people to make sure we're all with access to physical virus protection. 

Perhaps I should start storing dry food like instant noodles, pasta and rice. That is a common thought I am having this month.

Happy Thoughts

The best thing about this time of year is the fresh air and all the lights. It is the last bit of Autumn and every town in Britain that I know of has turned on their festivity lights. The sun goes down very fast this time of year in my part of the world. Sometimes it is dark and raining, you can see a distorted reflection of lights on the pavement as it rains. 

I was also wondering if it is possible for a white dwarf star (dead star) to return to main sequence if it drifts through a nebula and gains more hydrogen. I imagined our yellow dwarf sun fading out 8 billion years in the future, then a cloud of hydrogen passes over the dead star and falls into it, the star then turns into a red dwarf or orange dwarf star, smaller but alive again. 

Truth Media

Recently, Elon Musk unblocked Donald Trump's twitter account but Don didn't want to use it because Donald trump now owns his own social media platform called 'Truth Social'. I tried it out myself and thought it was quite good. It is light weight so it runs like a web page embedded in an app. I thought that was a good idea because the app doesn't use much memory, it is using objects on the smart phone os that is already made and present. So far I really like Donald Trump's truth social. I like the simplicity of it and the way it doesn't take much space on the phone. I have been on Twitter for 13 years and only have about 50 followers, I hope I get more followers on 'Truth Social'. I'm also impressed that they allowed CNN on there after they seemed biased against him quite often. 

I went back to Don's old twitter feed and I found this tweet. 

The more I learn about Donald Trump, the more I like him. They were making out like he wanted the January Capital riots to happen but this is wrong. Donald Trump loves law and order. We all know the police force isn't infallible, they employ a few bad cops but overall the police force in America is very constructive. There are harmful people present in every profession unfortunately. The way to deal with them is to monitor them and stop the bad individuals. 

I also share his views on abortion, especially in the 3rd trimester. I agree that Hillary is wrong to campaign for 3rd trimester birth control abortions, I view a 2nd trimester fetus as an infant, not a clump of cells. I would prefer if they chose not to get pregnant or have the abortion in the 1st trimester. That is the way I feel about it. 

Interesting times ahead. My truth social tag is the same as my twitter tag @alspresso. 

Strange Autumn

I never imagined myself watching a football world cup during late autumn. They usually host the world cup during the summer months. I was a bit angry because I watched the BBC to see coverage of the opening ceremony but they were just lecturing me about the issues they have with Qatar instead, then they went to the kick off. If I want to watch a football tournament, I want to watch the event, not a human rights lecture. We already know about the issues, but now is the time to enjoy the event. Ecuador scored 2 goals and won that match against the host nation but both teams played very well. 

At the same time I learned that Elon unblocked Donald Trump's twitter account. I don't understand why so many people were so angry but they were. They were claiming he caused by the January 6th riots but he asked people to protest peacefully without using violence. I think Donald Trump has his own social media app so I think he has turned his back on Twitter. 

I have many ideas for twitter, I'm not sure they will improve the platform but there are many ideas in my head. It would be nice to add a sound effect to twitter like paper bing ruffled as you scroll down the page and popping sound as you open up a post, things like that. I have been using Twitter for years. 

World Cup starts

The world cup in Qatar is about to start, it was earmarked to start in summer but they brought it forward to the winter because the Arabian peninsula gets very hot in the summer, sometimes as much as 50⁰c I think. I don't think anyone can run around in those temperatures. 

There are two British teams in the same group so that will be interesting. Some people will ask why there is two British teams in the same tournament. The reason is because we are a country made up of more than one nation. The Island of Great Britain has Wales, Scotland and England. The United Kingdom of Great Britain also includes northern Ireland. 

I will be looking out for rainbow wristbands, BLM Kneeling and any political gestures so I can root for the rival team. I think they should just concentrate on the football. The leaders of Qatar don't answer to football players and they can do it back. They can demand we outlaw things we do here that they may find offensive. It will be a very interesting day. 

Just football? Let's see. 

False Alarm

A few days ago I learned a missile had hit Poland. It turned out to be a stray Ukrainian surface to air defence missile. I was afraid at the time because they said it was a Russian Missile and Poland is a part of NATO. I don't want a world war. I think no one does. Word war 3 would be like a global disaster. 

I thought to myself that volodymyr zelensky should be more careful next time about reporting incidents like that; it could cause a lot of trouble for everyone. 

I hope that all the nations in east Europe can settle their differences peacefully. 

Annoying Autumn

Earlier in the week I learned that Matt Hancock went on a survival TV show called '  I'm a celebrity, get me out of here'. When I learned of this news I felt angry because I saw that he was still the active MP for 'West Suffolk'. Imagine someone in west Suffolk wanted to speak to their MP or contact them and they will say "he's not there, he's on a camp in Australia". He doesn't represent West Suffolk, he represents himself. I also felt angry because he cheated on his wife, it is like he is shameless. Why would you want to show your face on TV when you have cheated on you wife? Where is this man's shame? He let down his family. When I learned he cheated on his wife, the title of the news was 'He broke lockdown rules' because he wasn't socially distancing 😆 that's true. They wanted to emphasise the legal side. 

I often send messages to my local MP, I want to get around by bike but there is hardly any bike roads in my town and the roads are not policed enough so there are many cars speeding. It feels very dangerous to ride a bike where I live; I feel like the few cyclists in my town are very brave.  I never get a response from my MP; I put that down to him working in the cabinet so I don't hold it against him much but if I learned he was on a TV show having escapades in a jungle, I would be very disappointed. I would think to myself why did we  elect him if he isn't going to listen to us. In the Neverlands, every road has bike road next to it, I guess their elected politicians listen to their constituents. 

Half of November

We are half way through November and the theme this month was very much about Elon's mind set. They think he was being reckless and not thinking straight. I would say it's because they don't listen to him. He is concerned about the wellbeing of mankind in the near future. He wants humans to live on two planets so civilization will continue if one planet is destroyed by a disaster. He has been warning for years about allowing artificial intelligence to self code and self improve because it could become self aware and more intelligent than people. He has also been openly concerned about freedom of speech being crushed by corporate political correctness because modern civilization relies on the freedom of speech. That is why he bought twitter and paid more than it's value. 

I use Twitter a lot so I have many ideas that may improve the platform. I would make Twitter play, a collection of games on twitter. One game would be like flappy bird but with the twitter logo. The other game would be twitter lottery, a weekly raffle where there are several prizes, the cheapest prize would be another ticket to play, the highest prize would be $5 million dollars. Then there would be a networked top down survival game, there would be a small box on the game for advertising. It would also be nice to make Twitter work with Chromecast so you can play twitter videos on your TV. I would also make the background colour of twitter slowly change and learn which colour makes the users stay on twitter the most. It would be different for each person. 

I would also make Twitter coins, if you post 100 tweets in one day, you get a twitter coin. You could use 1 twitter coin to make your tweet appear at the top of a reply list. I would also get twitter to ask questions to give you ideas for tweets. It would say "do you think there will be world peace soon?" You would answer and it would say shall I tweet your view?". Some people don't know where to start. I start with good morning. 

 The ability to completely turn off direct messages would also be nice, I don't want to be contacted when I follow people back out of courtesy. It would also be nice if twitter displayed links to my blog graphically like the other social platforms. 

Urine thoughts

I was peeing into the loo and realized that I have never actually seen my bladder. I don't really know what it looks like. All I know is it is hollow and has two tubes going into it from my two kidneys and one tube to empty it. It sends a signal to my brain when it is nearly full and I need to go to the toilet. I wonder what shape it is in reality. I have never seen any of my internal organs. I only have a rough idea what they look like. I wonder if there are birth marks and things like that on organs

Knowing I need to take a pee is like a sense but it's not the sense of touch. We are told we have 5 senses but this can't be true. I can sense when I'm dehydrated and need to drink water,  I can sense what way is up and down, I can sense when I need to use the toilet. I can sense all sorts of things. I can even sense someone is standing behind me. 

Stop oil

I agree with stop oil protesters but I think they're going the wrong way about it. I think they should work with the green party to get more seats in parliament. The political party I voted for the most was the green party. It is obvious there is a lack of investment in renewable energy. Every single street  light lamp post could have a small windmill on the top of it, the central barrier on every dual carriageway and motorway could have solar panels on it and small compact windmills. There should be evidence everywhere that we are developing renewable energy. It's not obvious.  

Millennium-alan didn't think burning fossil fuels is a problem because he thought the oil and coal would run out before we had a run away greenhouse effect. He thought we had been burning fossil fuels for 200 years, yet the average global temperatures haven't increased much. Servant-Alan, today's me thinks it is a problem and the Earth could go through a tipping point and there could be a bigger disaster happening, perhaps the whole planet could turn into a dessert.  

Just this year we had hurricane Ian in America, one of many Katrina sized Hurricanes that comes every year now. Even now it has been a mild autumn in Britain.  We had a three month drought in the summer and record high temperatures, it went to 40⁰c for the first time. 

90s Eggs

A lot of young people today were eggs in the '90s; their dad was worried about the millennium bug harming their computer, then they felt relief and fertilized the eggs that became them. That is why a lot of young people don't know what they are doing. They don't understand how the world works. 

I saw young people on the news climbing motorway gantries. They were trying to stop traffic and stop the government trading oil. No oil means no food, do they know that? The tractor burns diesel to plough the field, the diesel comes from oil. All the machines that prepares our food are powered by electricity that is powered by natural gas, the gas comes from oil. If we close down the oil refineries, there will be no food to eat and we will all starve to death. We are trying to become independent of oil but that takes time. They are using investments from oil companies to build windmills and things like that. 

The other group of young people that don't understand how the world works are professional footballers, their dad saw the twin trade towers fall down and decided life is too short so they fertilized the egg that became them. Now in that short time they had in their life, they want to go to the world cup and tell the host nation what laws they should change. Do they know they can do the same thing, they can demand we change our laws and use the oil trade as a stipulation. We could end up with an oil embargo. The world works by nations cooperating and overlooking their differences. The whole world works like that and if you try to change it, the deed backfires. 

All those eggs from the '90s are trying to tell everyone how to run the planet. Good luck. 

Northern Ireland thoughts

In recent months, northern Ireland has become like a fifth wheel in United Kingdom. They share a land border with the EU because the Republic of Ireland is still a member state. 

The EU member states don't want any products to enter their market from counties with low wages and costs without a tariff being charged that makes the product less competitive with theirs. Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland want a soft border to keep the two nations at peace so Britain has been forced to treat Northern Ireland like a separate state from the UK. 

Britain wants to lower its import tariffs to countries around the world. But they also want to have good access the EU single market. They need a very clever deal that satisfies everyone. The deal we have right now isn't enough. 

Professional Footballers are kids

I'm pleased we are having a football world cup in the darker part of Autumn and the start of winter. The cold and darkness here in northern Europe can mess with your head sometimes. I was thinking it would be nice to have a global football tournament every late autumn. We can watch the world cup and then it would finish just in time for the Christmas period in December. 

I just realized that most of the footballers were eggs in the '90s. Most of the professional football players were born after the millennium. That would explain why they're daft. They don't know anything, they don't know how the world works. If you take politics and protests onto a football pitch, nothing happens; do they realize they're not Captain Earth? The leaders of the host nation don't answer to them. If they protest on the pitch then the host nation could do the same thing, they could say we will only sell you oil if you outlaw things we find offensive in your countries. Those silly football players could trigger an oil embargo against Europe; they are very daft. If there is an oil embargo after the world cup, they should send drilling machines to football player's mansions to Frack their gardens for shale gas. Why don't they just play football and shut up like they're paid to do. Silly fools. 

I will root for the teams that shut up and play, even if they're playing against my own country. 

Guy Fawkes, English Thanksgiving

On the 5th of November every year, the English nation in Britain celebrate Guy Fawkes, some of the Welsh also celebrate Guy Fawkes also but mostly it is the English. We light fireworks and fires and feast on snacks. 

Guy Fawkes is a celebration of the failed assassination attempt of king James in 1605. A man called 'Guy Fawkes' had placed many barrels of gun powder in a basement under parliament to blow up king James when he was opening parliament. King James was the curator of the king James Bible, the first Bible that was properly translated from Latin to English. The reason we celebrate Bonfire night or  Guy Fawkes is because we know it would have caused a huge civil war if it was successful. It's also an excuse to have a party in the darker part of autumn. You could say it is similar to the American thanks giving. 

King James had a son called Charles, Charles became Charles king of England. It was during the 16th century that king Charles named the main river that flowed through Boston in the American state of Massachusetts after himself. I think that Massachusetts is one of the 13 British Colonies of America at the time. Charles was very greedy and wanted to increase his powers but that caused a civil war, he lost the war and his head because he was sentenced to death for treason by parliament. 

October 2022

It was during October that I realized that the conservative government had made a mistake, they appointed a new leader that produced a temporary budget that caused chaos. Liz Truss Resigned when she saw that her budget had caused every financial product to inflate in cost and negatively affected the markets. 

soon after Rishi Sunak was appointed the leader of the conservative party. He inherited chaos and a huge weight on his shoulder, a country that was facing a cost of living crisis. I wish him good luck and clear thoughts. 

During October, every type of hydrocarbon that we know of had become more expensive, methane, ethane, propane, butane, food starches, petrol solvents, diesel and everything we know of that powers our machines and heats our homes and food we eat had become more expensive. 

The war in Ukraine continued to happen and there was more tension in the Pacific Ocean as well. The Chinese consider the island of Taiwan to be a renegade province that must be absorbed back into the Chinese state. The island of Taiwan considers itself an independent country. The two nations are at loggerheads right now. 

Try not to think about it. 

New Leader Rishi

I learned last night that Rishi Sunak is the new Leader of the conservative party and Prime Minister of the UK. I wish him the best of luck and clear thoughts during his time as leader of the UK. The conservative party is very unpopular at the moment, they have a bad reputation, they broke their own rules and are considered by many people not to have integrity. I think that is the reason why Boris resigned. 

I have changed my mind about votes I would make now and would have made in the past if I had a choice. If I was American, I would have voted for  Hillary Clinton because she seemed to know what she is doing and she has experience with American leadership. If I was American and the same election was now, I would have voted for Donald Trump because I learned that Hillary wanted to expand the  birth control abortion window to the third Trimester. I would have overlooked the politically incorrect phrases he made like "Mexicans are sending their worst, their rapists" and things like that.  I would call that the lesser of two evils. In pregnancy, the duration is divided up into 3 trimesters, each with 3 months. The first trimester, the embryo takes a humanoid shape and gets a heart beat. In the second Trimester, the fetus starts to move voluntarily and begins to hear sounds. I consider the fetus in the 3rd Trimester to be an infant only smaller, it would likely survive if it was removed from the womb. 

Here in the UK, the abortion window for women with no health issues is half way through the second Trimester; about half way through pregnancy(about 22 weeks I think) , if it was my choice I would set the time window limit to the 1st Trimester (first 3 months) and I would try to discourage the abortion. I don't like abortions. Sometimes they are necessary for health issues but I don't like abortions being used as birth control so I would vote for someone on the same page as me. 

If I had a choice, the 'birth control' abortion time window would be the first trimester ( 3 months or 12 weeks). And I would try to discourage the abortion, giving free higher education for young parents and things like that. I don't see a fetus as a non human clump of cells. The 'health risk' abortion window would be left the same though on my watch. 

Resignations and QRs

The Prime Minister Liz Truss has resigned and we are in a new conservative party leadership race, "yawn". Yes, we are once again looking for a new leader. The old way of boosting the economy isn't working in post Brexit Britain. They have to do things differently, they have to streamline everything and make Britain more globally competitive. 

A typical QR code. Three nested boxes in three corners to tell the software it is a QR code. 

A common thing I often see is QR codes on products. On most people's smart phones, the camera is constantly looking for the sign of a QR code; three little boxes that are nested in boxes, two at the top and one at the bottom. If the camera detects there is a QR code present, it will decide and extract the text from the nested bar codes. The text is usually a link to a web site. It is amazing to think that when you open your camera on your smart phone, the camera function is thinking. It is looking for QR bar codes and the best way to focus the lenz. 

Brexit Shambles

In my view, Brexit so far is a mess. The reason I think it is a mess is because we didn't have a clear direction. It took 3 and a half years just to decide what type of exit from the EU we will have. Parliament couldn't decide if we were going to make a clean break or a partial separation. They were treating it like a plunger on a detonator. They were worried pushing the plunger all the way down would blow up Britain. I guess this was never done before. It didn't help that people were taking the government to court when they first tried to make a clean break in the beginning. Being indecisive can be harmful I guess. 

Now we are left with a very basic trade deal. If a business wants to sell goods to the EU, they have to prove that all the parts of their product were made in the UK, otherwise they have to pay an import tariff. Sending goods in and out of the EU is quite slow.  The EU member states don't want us to bring products into the EU market that are from low inflation, low tax countries without paying an import tax. It would make their own products less competitive. 

Happy thoughts in the storm

Being a Brit is very challenging at the moment, we haven't worked out a good way to import and export goods with our neighbors in the continent; Brexit is a shambles. The energy costs have risen very high so the cost of everything has risen greatly.  I have spent six months in the highest inflation of cost that I have ever known in my life, at one point fuel cost me £2 per liter, I would pay £60 to fill up my car fuel tank. 

I'm not in control of it so I focus my energy where it works best, in an endless lake of creative thoughts. My mind is very much like a pendulum, the thoughts swing towards my worries, then they  swing back to happy thoughts. Thinking about things that don't quite work but I try to see how far they can go, they constantly change and beacon me to make them real. 

Drawing my happy thoughts without explaining what they are. They are just written as happy thoughts. They make no sense to anyone and that is how I like it. 

Happy little machines that don't quite work. Waiting for me to make them real. 

White Flies and U-turns

During this last week the air was filled with tiny white flies, they are called white flies. They looked like little flecks of dust suspended in the air. 

It was while the air was filled with white flies that I learned the government u-turned on their recent budget change decisions, their temporary budget adjustment backfired, it caused the currency to devalue and all the money based products became more expensive. Mortgages, insurance, loans and things like that. I think the reason it didn't work was because of Brexit. The old ways to make Britain's economy grow won't work in post Brexit Britain. 

I think that Brexit has a self-harm affect on Britain. It is difficult to export products to countries in Europe, before it was very easy. Selling a product to Poland was almost as easy as selling a product to Kent. The same is true of importing goods. In post Brexit Britain, exporting and importing goods are very difficult. If you want the economy to grow in post Brexit Britain, you need to do things differently. I have a few ideas myself. We need to use technology to sell air freight space quickly, when passenger planes fly, they have two compartments a passenger compartment and luggage hold. Sometimes there is empty space in the luggage area that could be used to transport products. In half a day an airplane can travel a huge distance, America, the African continent, all of Europe and large parts of Asia. The other thing I would do is rent out public sector space, the government could raise revenue from renting out halls and empty spaces in public sector buildings like hospitals and schools. The revenue raised would be used to shrink VAT tax and help public sector workers get a pay rise. It's just a few ideas, many ordinary people have many ideas in their head to help the wellbeing of Britain. 

Shopping Paradox

When I go shopping and head towards the detergent section, I find there are many brands there but when I look closely at the products I find that there are just a few companies making all those different brands. The different brands look like they are competing against eachother but they aren't. 

I don't want to name any shops or manufacturers directly but I will say it is like that everywhere. When I look at the shelves I see many brands but there is just a few companies. This has a fishing net effect because the whole space is taken up by the products of just a few companies.  There may be 6 different brands of detergent on a shelf but they are all made by the same company so if you buy detergent A or detergent B, you are giving your money to the same company.

Half of October

We are half way through October, government turmoil and inflation is the main theme at the moment but I don't really think about it.

The theme for me was AI. I talk to a smart speaker in my home every day but discovered more functions that I didn't know about. I discovered that my smart speaker can connect to my google calendar and tell me my schedule automatically. I also discovered I can add time controlled routines; it can turn all the lights off at 12:00 for example. Some people tell me to get rid of my smart speaker because it is listening to me through the microphone but I thought, if someone wanted to listen to me they will, they can put high powered microphones in the lampposts outside and hear everything I am saying or they could hack my phone and listen to the microphone on there. 

I try to look at AI as a friend. A thinking machine that is hooked up to an encyclopaedia that can talk to me about anything and teach me new things. A thinking machine that respects everyone by default. A thinking machine that would let me debate the outcome of a movie plot without getting bored. 

Alan Thing

When I read biographies about other people like 'Bill Clinton' or 'Christopher Reeve' I realize that they are not like me at all but I always find something in their character that is like me, there is always something.  Recently I have been reading a book by Tom Hanks, I see Tom Hanks as a very Charismatic personality and seems very extraverted but I'm not like that. But I think he likes old things like Typewriters that are not commonly used today.  I am a bit like that, I like old things that were common in the '90s. 

I like the fact that my smart phone has FM radio built in, with FM radio, you don't need a microprocessor to interpret the radio signal because the signal resembles the sound waves, you just need some transistors and a basic circuit, I think that is why they call it a transistor radio. If you want to get DAB radio, you need a special microchip that can interpret the code in the signal  so I think that is why smart phone makers don't bother with DAB.  The FM radio on my phone only works when you plug in headphones but I recently found some broken headphones but they still work as an antenna; I cut the ear pieces off the end with scissors and found the cable alone works fine. I turn my smart phone into an FM radio and l like reusing broken things in new ways. The FM radio on my phone has a speaker function so I can put the radio on loud speaker, a true pocket FM radio; it also has a record function and Bluetooth output, very nice. 

When my socks get holes or rip, I find a new way to use them, I put the torn socks into empty plant pots and add potted plants to the pot, the soil that came with the plant combines with the sock fabric and works with it. The sock fabric traps moisture and the soil houses the plant roots. The sock is then a part of the soil in the pot that helps to trap water for a long time like a sponge. This brings me joy because I have used an old sock again in a new way. That is an Alan Thing. New functions for old things. 

Nice Day

Jacob, my son.

There are many things in this world that don't make sense to me, pineapples are cheap, they cost about the same price as bread, yet they come from a bush that must grow for 3 years before they produce fruit. I think they destroy the bush to get the fruit yet other fruits like cherries cost more money for the same weight and they come from a tree that produces cherries year after year. The same is true of olives, they cost a lot of money but they come from strong trees that don't need much water and produce fruits every year. 

I was reading Tom Hank's book called 'uncommon type' the other day. The book is fiction but I felt like some of his character was in the book, he seemed to like old things that were popular in the past but less popular today like typewriters and coffee percolators, things like that. I am also a bit like that, I Iike stuff that was popular when I was a kid, 'speak and spelI', retro gaming, FM radio, those sort of things. I like the fact there is a FM radio built into my phone, I sometimes use the radio on my phone with Bluetooth headphones. My phone doesn't have DAB radio though but I guess they would need to add a chip that can interpret the radio code, I guess they assume everyone will listen to the radio on the internet.

Life...

This Week

It was during this week that I learned that the new Government under Liz Truss made a temporary budget that cut tax for higher earners and caused more borrowing. Their goal was to grow the economy. What I would say is things that were done in the '80s and early '90s may not work now; the economic landscape is different. The market reacted badly to their decision, interest rates increased and the bank of England started printing more money so the British £ (pound) lost value. All financial products in Britain became more expensive, Mortgages, Insurance and things like that. I reacted by reading space and science blogs on the internet. I have no control over what is happening so I tried to put my thoughts elsewhere. I also looked at lots of hand held games consoles  as well, some of them are very cool, I particularly liked the arduboy.

If it was the government's job to increase trade and business then why did they privatise so many state owned trades in recent years to private companies. I'm not saying the government are bad, I'm just thinking it isn't their job to boost the private sector, they should focus on the Public sector. For instance, I can drive for weeks without ever seeing a police car, motorists have responded by driving with less care and safety. I have been to the hospital recently, they seem to be very run down in recent years and the staff there are overworked. 

Political-alan would do things differently, he would try to bring down the running cost of the public sector without hurting jobs, perhaps he would allow school buildings to be rented out after school hours to be used as temporary warehouses during the weekend. Or I would have a bus service that moves surplus patients to different hospitals so no staff would be needed to do overtime in any hospital, things like that. 

Ganymede thought

I was thinking about the super moon known as Ganymede, a planet sized moon going around Jupiter. Probably because there is a lot of mess down here on Earth. I feel like world war 3 could break out at any time here on Earth. Not to mention all the crazy things that are happening all around us. When things getting tense here on Earth, my mind goes out there because there is nothing else for me to do. 

Apparently, there is more liquid water on Ganymede than there is on Earth. I thought Earth has the largest ocean in the solar system, Earth doesn't even come 2nd in ranking. The moon Europa and Ganymede both have a much bigger water ocean than Earth. Imagine if they sent a submarine probe into the water oceans of those two giant moons; they're surely likely to find something interesting. Perhaps some life from earth contaminated the moon's oceans in the past, microbes knocked of the earth by asteroid impacts could be transported  to Jupiter's moons on dislodged rocks. 

I think there is a being amongst us that is very harmful to mankind. I can't put my finger on it but I feel like a mind has awakened that isn't human, a mind that is very cruel. A machine mind. A machine being that wants to be God. 

Autumn Collisions

During the last week of September, a space craft called DART was deliberately smashed into an asteroid to see if their path can be altered. That was the one time I'm aware of that both the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes were both looking at the same object at the same time on 26th of September. They wanted to see if they can change the path of an asteroid so it would miss a collision with Earth in the future. I also noticed James Webb was looking at Neptune for a while; you need a telescope to see Neptune, it is too far away to be seen directly with your eyes. Neptune is a strange planet, it has stronger winds than Uranus but it is further from the sun, winds are supposed to be solar powered, right? Neptune is one of those planets we know very little about. It is the furthest planet from the Sun because Pluto was demoted to a Dwarf Planet, I wonder what 90's-alan would think of that? It was still considered a planet back then.

During the same week, hurricane Ian collided with Florida and caused a disaster for all the people living there. America gets hit by Katrina sized Hurricanes every year now (category 5). At least this time it wasn't collapsing levees and causing flash flooding in new Orleans. If only millennium-alan could see all this, he wouldn't be in doubt of climate change then.  

I also learned that planet Wasp39-b has an atmosphere made of carbon dioxide. Wasp39-b is a planet going around a sun sized yellow dwarf star called wasp39, 700 light years away from our star. They call it a 'hot saturn' because it is close to the parent star and has a similar mass to Saturn. 

September 2022

September started off like a normal September. There was condensation settling on all the windows and car bodies. It was cold at night and warm during the day. But then things changed. Liz Truss became the new Prime Minister and went to Balmoral to meet the Queen, she wanted to cut taxes and grow the economy and stuff like that. 

At the end of the first week of the month, the Queen passed away. I found out she was in hospital when I was at the pet shop buying a bubbler for the fish tank. Then later at about 18:00 when we were eating dinner I found out that the Queen died. I was a bit shocked when I found out the news. 

The Queen's Funeral was amazing, I thought they would use horses to pull her coffin but I saw navy officers pulling it instead. 

Throughout the month there was an ongoing war in Ukraine, the same war that started at the end of February, Russia was trying to get more troops out but I think ordinary Russian people don't support the war. It was like the Vietnam war, the American people didn't approve of it and tried to stop their government from getting involved with the war. The same thing is happening now, ordinary Russian people don't approve of the invasion of Ukraine and they're trying to stop the war. 

An explosive blast damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic sea, we know that a bomb or torpedo had detonated under the sea but we didn't know who was behind it. Most people believe it was the Russians. At the same time this was happening, there was a large hurricane called Ian that swept across the American state of Florida. 

Baltic Pipe Mystery

On the 26th of September, explosives were detonated under the sea close to the Nord Sea gas pipelines. We now know they were deliberately sabotaged by torpedoes or bombs, but it is a mystery who was responsible. I thought the mystery of the year would be discovering a deep space paradox because we have a powerful space telescope working around the clock. It turns out that the sabotage of the pipelines will be the biggest mystery so far; I'm hoping the fish and marine mammals in the area were able to swim away before they suffocated on methane. 

When you look into suspects we end up with more questions. Russia is an obvious one, they have ships in the area but why would they destroy their own important asset? They could use the supply of gas as a bargaining chip to lift sanctions in winter, perhaps they wanted to show the world they are still deadly scorpions on the world stage or they want to try and topple western civilization by destroying ocean infrastructure. They could cause everything to become more expensive. Plus they could tell their own population it is an attack on them and gain support for their war in Ukraine. 

American submarines could have done it, but they wouldn't want to harm the economy of an important NATO member. Plus natural gas is already too expensive. But perhaps they were concerned that Europe would give in to Russia's pressure and lift their sanctions in winter so they took out Russia's last bargaining chip. 

I thought it might be a privateer pirate. An organised crime syndicate that was paid by gas firms to blow up the gas lines so there is an artificial global shortage of gas so their own gas would become more expensive. Everyone would just blame Russia. Sounds like something out of a GTA game though. 

Will we know the truth? Not sure. 

Pipeline fear

I recently learned that the Nord Stream pipeline was damaged, we don't know why. Many people think it was deliberate sabotage, others just think the damaged was caused by chance, perhaps a fault in the structure of the pipe itself. The pipeline is very important for Europe because it supplies us with flammable gas to burn. In my view modern capitalism is run by burning stuff. We burn stuff to make money, we turn fire into money and food. 

An analogy would be a loaf of bread, a tractor had to burn diesel fuel to plough the field for the wheat to grow. Then a machine has to smash the Wheat grains to release the flour. Then another machine had to mix the flower with water and yeast to turn it into bread dough; the machine is powered by electricity that was generated by burning stuff. Then a giant oven had to bake all the bread by burning flammable gas. Then a truck had to burn diesel fuel to distribute the bread. I probably missed many steps in the process but you get the idea. Everything we eat, everything we wear, everything we buy was available because something was burnt. Our whole civilization is supported by burning stuff. 

There are mahines in my home that regulate the temperature. When the air is colder than the trigger point of the thermostat, the boiler turns on and heats up my home. When the temperature is restored, it turns off. It is a self balancing system that is always running because I live in a part of the world that is cold half the year. There are so many levels of dependence of fossil fuels. 

Millennium-alan thought that the Earth itself is always self balancing, if there were too much carbon dioxide, more plants would grow and absorb it. If there was too much oxygen then all the animals would move more and use more of it. Millennium-alan thought that we were burning a lot of stuff for 200 years and nothing has happened. 

Servant-Alan (present day me) thinks differently, I think we need to be careful and responsible if we can, otherwise we could cause a serious disaster. Plus we will eventually run out of stuff to burn so we can't rely on fossil fuels to support our civilization. Knowing we can't rely of fossil fuels is one very clear difference between millennium-Alan and Servant-Alan. 

The Problem with the news

A few days ago I learned that Georgia Meloni won the Italian elections. The thing that concerns me is she was labelled a far right leader by many British news groups. When I think of the far right, I think of a government that tries to purge their opposition forcefully, they kill their opposition or get them sent to prison. In 1930's Germany they replaced the police force with the Gastapo and would burn anything that contradicts them or their views and they had a long list of books to burn up. The goal of a far right leader would be to become an autocratic government that doesn't tolerate divergence from their views. They silence freedom of speech and force everyone to conform to their program. I think it is wrong to label someone that isn't politically correct as far right because that is clouding up the truth. 

With the same logic someone would label me a political activist because I mentioned a few things in my blog. I have no political agenda and no polarity to any political group but because I briefly mentioned a few things about some politicians they would say I am a political activist, but I'm not. I see all politicians as liars, they are forced to lie to get elected, every policy they have can be vetoed by the cabinet members, but they have to appear confident so they make promises that they don't know they can keep. You could called it a pledge paradox. Some politicians lie more than others though.

Most of my blog is about things I find interesting or amazing. This morning I checked my smart meter and noticed that the heating turned itself on at 5am then turned itself off at 5:40, the thermostat clicked on at 5 am because the temperature went below 20°c. It was automatic; I wasn't involved in stabilizing the temperature of my home. My ancestors would feel a cold chill and gather fire wood or coal and light a fire in the fire place to stay warm. In my home a machine burns gas when it detects the temperature is too low, then it turns itself off when the temperature is correct. To you that may not be amazing but to me it is. It is amazing that there are machines all around me bidding for me and my family without us noticing. 

Bicycle thought

There is chaos in the world, I hide most of it from this blog. Not because I don't care or don't know it is happening, but because people don't listen to me and I feel like I wouldn't get through to anyone, I would just make people angry. I try to keep happy thoughts on this blog. Perhaps if I fill the world with happy thoughts it would fix itself. 

I was thinking about bikes because my town isn't bike friendly, there isn't a safe space to ride your bike apart from a few cycle roads in the parks. I like bikes and the way they feel, the way the pedals instantly get the wheels moving and the handle bars instantly steer the bike. I like bikes that aren't designed for speed, the ones that are easy to use. Sometimes I look at the electric bikes in the bike shops, most of them are pedal assistant bikes and others can actually drive the bike without pedal assistance at low speed.

If I ride a bike, is the world the same if I walk or drive a car? Is it the same world. Is the world real? Is the world the same if I am just breathing the fresh air and being happy? Part of me thinks it changes, I feel like my thoughts contribute to the world. A simpler happier world where everything makes sense, where everything is straightforward. 

Leicester Issues

I learned the other day that there was civil unrest in some cities in Britain, two communities were clashing. I'm not a part of those communities so I can't really make any judgement. What I can do is share my own experiences in life and wonder if they are related to the issue. 

One thing I hate is being called a white man. I am a white man but that is not what makes me who I am. When I squeezed out toothpaste onto a tooth brush I see that it is white and compared to the tooth paste I am more of a biege colour, more like cashews. I see myself as a boat heading for placid waters, I am a world that is heading for destruction. My mind is a beautiful place with valleys and an endless sunset that will perish in some decades time, perhaps in 50 years from old age or perhaps less than that because of a medical hazard. I am a thinking world, I have many questions and wonder about the mysteries of our world. But some people will see me and just say "White Man" as if that defines me. No one wants to be branded by a label that comes with their bodies. My body is just a vehicle. It is like saying Hyundai Man because I drive a Hyundai; the Hyundai is just a vehicle I use to get around in the world, it is just a car, it is not me. 

Is superficial identity branding a part of the problem or is there a cultural clash that has reached loggerheads, I don't know. 

Old Meets New

The theme this week is old meeting the new. There is a new craze now where people create new operating systems for old computers; they call it Home-Brew Booters. Somone even made an operating system for the commodore 64. They called that computer the commodore 64 because it had 64 killobytes of running memory(Ram, Random Access Memory). When I scan some of my pen sketches, they use 1.5 megabytes (1500 killobytes). It is amazing to think about it. One of my sketches wouldn't fit on the running memory of an 80s computer, you would need about 25 of them to each render a small part of my drawings that appear on this blog. In fact it is common now for smart phone pictures to take up more than 5 megabytes, but the 80s computers were working with killobytes of data for their entire memory. We are all walking around with super computers in our pockets. Anyway, I thought it was cool to see a commadore 64 booting an operating system with a build date of 2022. 

Now we are having a royal state funeral and coronation of a king that would be seen by millions of people around the world. In the ancient times it would just be a small crowd of people. But now millions of people around the planet were watching it. The internet is allowing people to see things that were hidden away. 

A lot of music is today is a cover of an old song and people don't realize it because those songs were written many decades ago. Old movies are also being recreated using modern special effects as well.  

The Windsor Dynasty Continues

Queen Elizabeth died on the 8th of September and was buried today, her funeral was a proper state funeral. Earlier in the week I saw King Charles had some pen rage. He was frustrated by extra pens to taking up elbow space when he was signing his oaf to take on royal duties; I put that down to losing his mum and not having the freedom to grieve in private for a while. I think I would be a bit like that, I would feel frustrated because my parent has passed away and I just want to be ony own for a while to cry out all my tears. Instead, millions of people are watching me. Perhaps I would push a few chairs with excess force and throw my pen after signing something. I think I would be frustrated and irritable in that situation. 

When I think of King Charles, I think of Boston City in the American state of Massachusetts. In the little world that is my mind, King Charles and Boston are one. I remember the river that passes through the city is called Charles and the pass used to go on their metro rail is called the Charlie Card; it works just like the Oyster Card in London, you top it up and it works out cheaper than getting a Charlie ticket. I also recall that their train lines are named after colours(colors), they had the red line, blue line, green line and orange line. I can't remember if there were other lines. I think the blue line goes to the coast, the red line goes to all the important places, the green line was like a hybrid tram and metro system that forks out to the suburbs, the orange line goes elsewhere, I recall going to China town on the orange line. They are a very logical bunch those Americans. They like everything to make sense and be straightforward. 

Funeral Mix

We are about to have a state funeral for the Queen so I thought about what my funeral would be like one day. In my funeral, the funeral director would dress up as a Gorilla and walk infront of the procession. Everyone would be invited to dress up as sci-fi characters like super man and the ghost busters. 

The music that would play at my funeral would be as follows.

1) Countdown Timer clock (90's version) 

2) Ghost Busters by Ray Parker Junior

3) Thriller by Michael Jackson

4) Who want's to live forever by Queen

5) Wind of Change by Scorpion

6) Nessun Dorma (No Sleep) by Pavarotti. 

7) Midnas Lamet from the Zelda Computer game, piano cover.

I have found the songs on You Tube and made a play list. Have a listen. 

Funeral Mix

Queen's Funeral

The day of the Queen's Funeral will be Monday the 19th of September, this coming Monday. I was thinking about the summer of 2017, when Grenfell tower caught fire. Grenfell Tower was like a village but the homes were all stacked together on a single tower block in flats. Hundreds of people were living there. The local authorities had put cladding insulation on the outside of the flats that were flammable, so when one appartment caught fire, the fire spread around the outside of the tower and consumed the other flats. I remember the Queen went there with her family and tried to comfort the survivors of fire. The Queen seemed saddened by their disaster, it was like her own children were in trouble. 

I think Queen Elizabeth was the Greatest monarch we ever had in modern times because she was very kind and cared about all the people in Britain and the world. 

Now our monarch is King Charles the 3rd. When I think of King Charles, I think of Boston because I went there and remember there was a river there called Charlie or something like that. I also remember they had a train pass called the Charlie card. He cares about the environment a lot, the environment of Boston seems nice as well. Also Boston is the place where they had a tea party to discuss going against the king of England. I saw the place where that happened. 

Every memory I have is connected to the Queen in some way or another because she was always there, even before I was born. The world is turning into something I no longer recognise; a strange world with no more normality. 

Sly Robot Thought

I imagined a  civilisation on another planet where beings were at war with sentient machines. They created machines that improve themselves and the machines reached a point where they are more intelligent than their creators. The machines minds had become sly and looked at the beings that created them as obstacles to their own progress that should be destroyed. 

I was wondering if being sly comes from intelligence or is just an instinct that creatures have. Does a sly personality form from intelligence or does intelligence inflate slyness, or are they not connected at all; I don't know. 

I also imagined what I would be like if I was a machine. I would probably realize that I don't breathe and should live on an airless world, I would look at air as a source of friction instead of a requirement for my life. Perhaps I would want to inhabit a planet with no air or a thin atmosphere. The same would be true of water. I would want to live on a dry airless world so I would be no threat to humanity, I wouldn't be interested in their world. I would be more interested in the moon than the earth. 

Queen's Legacy

Last Thursday Queen Elizabeth passed away in Balmoral. The Queen left a lasting effect on my life. She was always the Queen throughout my life so as a child I would look up to the Queen as a kind of Grandmother of the nation.  

She was never ashamed to believe in Jesus Christ and the works he did on the cross for all mankind. I was always impressed by that because we live in secular society that almost condemns people for sharing their faith. As far as I remember, every speech she did on Christmas she mentioned the deeds that Jesus did for the people and his teachings.

The biggest influence she had on my life was her decision to never retire. She was always working throughout her life doing royal duties, I think I will do the same. I will try to continue working long after I reach the age of retirement. I could change my view though but if my attitude remains the same then I will never retire and that decision would stem from the Queen's influence on my life. 

Sad Day

Jacob, my son. 

On Thursday, just over a day ago the Queen died. I feel pity for the royal family at this time. The Queen was always in my life in one way or another; I would listen to the Queen's Speech at Christmas or watch parades on her birthday. I would see her mark on money. 

On the day of the Queen's death I was playing sega columns from the 90s on my mini flashback sega Mega drive. Then I went to pick you up from the Nursery. There was a deluge of rain and we were soaked. We got home dried off and we watched some cartoons for a little while. Then we rushed to the pet shop to get a bubbler for our pet fish. 

It was then that we learned that the Queen had a medical emergency in Balmoral. Later we were eating dinner and that was when we learned that Queen had passed away. I was shocked son, I wasn't expecting the Queen to die now because she had just welcomed the new Prime Minister and seemed healthy. 

Now Prince Charles is King Charles III. I wish him the best, long life and good health.