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.