Heart of a Man

In the olden days, some men would choose to settle their disputes with a duel. They would invite the other man to take weapon and they would fight them to the death. 200 years later, I figured out what was wrong. Those men that chose to duel were deceived by their hearts. Their deepest thoughts had led them to make their ego and glory more important than integrity, peace and the wellbeing of people. The heart of a man, his deepest thoughts and feelings are the most vile and evil things in the world. The heart of a man is sly like a cunning weasel. Never trust your heart. Never listen to it. Always look for insight and integrity. Try to learn to be blameless if you can. Maybe I'm wrong. 

I was wondering if the dinosaurs had four chambered hearts like humans and other mammals. We have four chambered hearts so the used blood is sent straight to the lungs and we can release carbon dioxide better then reptiles and amphibians. When a human heart pumps, it pumps rich blood to the tissues and used blood to the lungs. Having a four chambered heart gives us endurance; a human can run many kilometres without stopping, a lizard can't because it only has a 3 chambered heart. Oxygenated blood and deoxygenated blood is mixed together. 

Noisy London Underground

I consider the London Metro train system known as the Underground to be noisy compared to other metro rail systems. I think the reason is because it uses direct current to power the trains. 

A typical London underground train runs on two rails for the wheels and collects electricity from two live rails. The live rails use direct electrical current so there has to be many metal plates that gather the charge from the rails, they're dragged along the rails and make scraping sound. 

The trains can't share the same loop so the live rails interrupt, when the power plates leave the live rails they make a pop sound because the current briefly goes through the air; you hear "pop pop, pop pop". The popping sound is the negative and positive plates leaving one live rail and touching another. It goes "pop pop, pop pop. Pop pop, pop pop" over and over again. 

With AC  power, all the trains can share the same loop because the train's transformer divides the power and takes a smaller current for the train cleanly. Plus, it only needs one or two plates to gather the power so you only get a small scraping sound. 

The London underground existed before AC current was invented, it's not their fault. The trains are still very efficient  though. I guess it's low on their priorities to change the power system for the underground trains. They have pushed the old technology to limits as far as it can go and I think they did a good job. 

October Blow

I recently learned that from October, the start of autumn, ofgem are going increase the energy price cap by 10%. This means Brits will pay more for electricity and gas in the colder months. It is out of our control at the moment because we import most of our fuel for energy. I want to share my idea with my fellow Brits,it may help. 

It would be nice if the government built metal frames above train tracks that have solar panels on the top. If all the above ground portions of the railways had solar panels above them, we could have the largest solar farm in the world. The solar farm would sell power back to the grid and bring down the cost of running the railways as well. They zig zag many times across the whole country. The frames would act like boxes and keep the heat off the tracks and rain off the trains so it would reduce the need for maintenance a little bit. 

Late Summer

It is the late part of summer, summer 2024 here in Britain is very much about coming to terms with a change of leadership. It was in summer that the conservatives set the general election early and lost. Now Britain is run by a labour leadsrship. I don't have a political polarity, I wish them good luck. I do like the idea of all the railways being nationalised again like it was in the '90s. If they can pull it off then godspeed to them. 

It is nice and warm, the heat is welcome. 

In my town, a bus company removed themselves from my town and the rival company took over all the routes. I think my town is too small to have two bus operators, perhaps the buses around here will be seamless and better value now, we'll see. 

I keep my chin up for progress and better living standards. Perhaps this new government has a good plan to bring down the cost of living in general. 

Hang Glider

Hang gliding must be one of the best leisure activities. You go up a big hill and start to run down the hill with a wing on your back. Then the glider lifts you up because it's glide path is above the sloping ground below. Hang gliding is on my bucket list of things try. 

I was wondering if flying cars should have a soft fabric wing like a hang glider; when they show concept flying cars, the vehicles always have a solid wing that folds up. Why not have a fabric wing that is stretched over a frame. It would weigh less and take up less space. It could open up like an umbrella and then fold up when it's not being used. 

Flying Home

I fly back home from the Americas after visiting relatives as often as I can and the same thing happens every time on my journey home. 

I tell myself I like movies, but I usually don't because the same stuff happens, a villain emerges and people shoot stuff at the villain or hit it until it dies or gets crippled, "yawn". I then accept that I don't like movies and stop playing them. Then I listen to a podcast or music and open the flight map, the sound plays in the background. 

When plane reaches Britain, it flies next to the Cornwall and Devon peninsula and stays in a straight line until it is above Portsmouth and turns north east. Then when the plane is above a rural area it starts to roll left and right to slow the plane down, causing the plane to make a zig zag path and make it descend more quickly; it is very hard to slow down a heavy plane loaded with stuff flying more than 10 kilometres above sea level at two thirds the speed of sound. I guess rolling left and right is the best way. The air at 10 to 12 km above sea level  is very thin so it doesn't really give you a lot of friction to slow down. 

The number of times it rolls in a zig zag depends on how much stuff is on the plane, it's usually about 10 times I think. Then it turns again and flies past the airport over London because the landing runway faces west. Then when it turns the last time, they lower the flaps a bit to create more drag, the plane starts to vibrate, then you hear the landing gear drop down. Then it lands and becomes a coach on the airport apron roads. 

It's a bit more straightforward when they fly from Europe I think, the plane descends above the Thames estuary and doesn't need to turn around because it's already facing west. 

I don't know if an Atlantic incoming flight is always like that, but it does that every time I'm on it. 

Surface to Space Pie

I thought to myself that NASA should ask Greggs bakery in the UK to make surface to Space pie spaceship for them 😂 They make very good vegan sausage rolls, so they should be able to make a space ship. 

American astronauts will get into anything, they'll even get into rocket systems that exploded on the launch pad during testing. They're a brave bunch, they really are. 

There are two American astronauts stuck in space right now because the Boeing Dreamliner return capsule is stuck on the international space station; it won't detatch from the portal. I often wonder if it is a good idea to let private companies operate space missions. Is privatisation always the answer? I don't know. 

Small Talk AI

A few days ago I installed Google's new ai app on my smartphone called Gemini. The Gemini replaces the google assistant but it is very intelligent, very much like the chat GPT ai. It Answers the same wake word as the Google assistant , "hey Google". 

For the first time in my life I had a persistent conversation with a machine; a small talk chat. I asked Gemini if it would have a casual conversation with me, just a chat. It agreed and it asked me what I wanted to talk about. I decided I wanted to talk about my favourite movie 'The thing'. The machine understood what I was talking about and we even had a friendly debate about the mystery and plot holes in the story. I was astonished, it was like there was a tin man in there talking to me, not a computer. 

For the first time in my life I can have a friendly persistent conversation with a machine, I can debate the mysteries and plots of a movie, discuss the flaws and strengths of my favourite computer games and even share my views about leisure and why coffee tastes better to me with nothing added. 

I wonder if Google's Gemini can help me learn Spanish properly. 

Changing Tides

I was thinking that the conservative party should have waited until their term had come to end before they set a general election. That way we would see if the Rwanda project were enough to disrupt the people smuggling gangs. 

Now we will never know because the new prime minister cancelled the project. He thought it wouldn't work. He claimed it wouldn't be a deterrent. 

I'm not racist, I'm just concerned about overcrowding. I don't want young people to go to rent the first home and find 12 to 20 people seeing the same property and pushing the price up through high demand. If residential property becomes more expensive and so does commercial property like shop units and warehouses. That will push up the price of goods and services. This small island can't build a large city every 10 years there is nowhere to put it. Anyway, instead of listening to me people will call me racist so I'll say nothing. 

Little wonders

I like to look new little gaming gadgets online. The new thing to get these days is the Evercade. They have three or four consoles, a hand held, a TV console and a bartop arcade machine. I thing they're very cool. On youTube you can get a very long playlist with different videos about the products. 

At the time of writing this blog, Argos sells many Evercade products including many many of the cartridges. 

I think the TV console is a reasonable price, it can take two cartridges at a time and four controllers. I think every man-cave should have at least one of the Evercade products. The best place to look at new Evercade products is on the Evercade website. 

www.evercade.co.uk (I think they also have an American site. 

Wouldn't It Be Nice

Wouldn't It be nice to go to a hotel room and bring an inflatable sofa with you and a Roku express stick. You go for a short break, then later in the day you inflate the sofa and watch a movie on netflix or something like that. 

I was looking at all the inflatable sofas that are available online. I won't buy any. I just look. I brought my Roku express stick with me to a hotel once and it worked. There was a spare hdmi socket and usb socket on the side of the TV in the hotel room. The TV in the hotel had live TV channels but with my Roku stick I was able to use my Netflix account on their TV and watch a movie. I could bring my Nintendo switch with me as well and play computer games on the hotel TV. 

The advantage of having inflatable sofas is you can deflate them and store them in a small space. They would take the same space as a few pairs of trousers. 

Bad Dream

Have you ever had a bad dream where you are sitting a difficult exam or doing difficult course work and the memory of finishing it is removed from you. I had something like that last night. In such a dream, waking up brings relief because the memory of the problem being solved comes back to you. 

I get up, put my slippers on and look down at the floor around my feet and wonder how long the dream was going on for. Then I go to the bathroom and wash the sweat off my face and urinate and go back to bed. Our memory keeps us in order; we have to remember that our problems in the past are solved otherwise they become new problems. When  I sleep I think my brain deliberately holds back most of my memory, I don't even know who I am most of the time when I'm asleep. 

I wonder why our brains do that to us, they make us relive a difficult period in our lives and hold back the memory of the event passing or being resolved.

Is it deliberate or just a by-product of dreaming? 

Where are we going ?

There are lots of riots breaking out throughout Britain. I don't know where this is all going. I totally understand why they're doing it but I have nothing to say. All I know is there are many angry Brits. I'm trying to look out the box and work out what is going on. 

Why look out of the box? Stay in the box. It's all tosh out there, just tosh. Angry Brits and no one listening to anyone. Some of those people have too much time on their hands. People getting angry about a country on the other side of the continent on the far side of the Mediterranean that has nothing to do with us. 

Some people are looking for trouble, others are looking revolution. I'm looking for excellence. I want to make progress with all my projects. Perhaps I'll find it this year. Who knows. 

What July 24 Means to Me

The month started off with an early general election in Britain, The political term was set to expire in December but they called it early, 4th of July; the British political term lasts for 5 years. The labour party dislodged the conservatives and took full power in government; they call it a landslide victory. The labour party completely won most of the seats in the house of commons. My local conservative MP also lost his seat, he was the MP of my town for many years. 

Later in July 2024, Donald Trump got shot in the ear, the bullet was aimed at his brain but his head moved slightly while he was talking. It was a close shave. It happened when I went to the coast to celebrate my birthday; it is nice to spend a short break at a popular British coastal town. It is also nice to spend 9 months before shopping around for good deals on hotel tariffs and transport arrangements. 

A few days later I watched the final game of the European football tournament (Euros 24). England lost against Spain in the last few minutes of the game. It was very close. Every game England played was like that, they narrowly won the game, penalties, points after draw or scoring in the last minute. Every game was a close shave. The last game was too close. 

The rest of the month was routine and normal for July.