Romanian Aluminium Mystery

I like mysteries, both in fiction and real. One mystery that has no answer is the Romanian Aluminium mystery. 

What happened is a chunk of Aluminium was found buried in Romania and they think it was forged tens of thousands of years ago. The problem is we learned how to extract aluminium from its ore just recently in the 1820s I think, around the time when we were making slavery illegal in the UK at the start of the industrial revolution. It is very hard to extract aluminium from its ore because heat and electricity have to be combined on the ore to free it. 

Some people think the aluminium fragment came from an alien star ship thousands of years ago. Others think it came from meteorite. Some people think it was wedged into the ground when a German bomber plane crashed at the site but no one really knows. 

Scooters and VR

I have no control over what is happening around me, I have no control of the Pandemic or Brexit and I have no control over businesses closing down and thousands of people losing their job. I'm just a krill in the tide being pushed along by the waters of chaos. I drink my coffee and do all the little routines I do every day and try to be optimistic. 

I have some control of my mind and where my attention is. I like to look at electric scooters and VR headsets on YouTube and shopping sites. I like the idea of having a powered vehicle that costs almost nothing to run. Bikes cost nothing to run but they are not powered vehicles, e scooters are powered, they have electric motors.  I am amazed by the range they have, some of them can travel over 20km on one charge. Some can fold up very small and be carried on to public transport. 

I think VR will take off when they make walker devices that let you walk without moving, like treadmills but for virtual reality so you can walk around in other worlds without bumping into walls. In virtual reality you can go anywhere, you can walk on the moon or in a fantasy world. If you walk in virtual reality without moving it can make you feel nauseous. I learned that from experience. 

Nothing but fog

I wonder what would happen if an unstoppable force acted on an unmovable object. I wouldn't like to be nearby, a very big explosion perhaps. 

There is lots of fog everywhere and it is cold. I have nothing to say. When I was a kid I watched 'Around the world in 80 days with Willy Fog'. Well, you wouldn't see it if it was foggy. 

Vaccine Ready

The UK government has approved the safety of the Covid19 vaccine and have been accused by other governments of cutting corners with safety and testing. What I would ask is where is their evidence? They don't know what the testing agency was doing, perhaps our testing agency were more rigorous with their testing than theirs. 

I think they will give the vaccine to the elderly first because they're at risk the most. Then to people with diabetes or asthma and eventually to everyone else if they want it. 

My view is, diseases like Polio and Small pox has been eradicated by vaccines so we know they work. It is nice when a disease is attacked by our immune system straight away when it enters the body. It is excellent when our immune cells know what attack straight away. 

driving day

Jacob, my son. I think that by the time you read this post, cars and trucks would drive themselves. I think people would drink more alcohol in your  time because in this time, people abstain from drinking alcohol because of their driving routine. 

Driving is very annoying to me. Here in the UK our government decided they would add a second stop line at traffic light junctions for bikes so they can get ahead of the cars. They also consider driving over the first stop line to be jumping the lights and would punish drivers by adding 3 penalty points to their driving license and giving them a £100 fine if they are caught. I know this rule but many drivers don't and they get annoyed with me. I would be waiting at a red light and watch a car in the next lane drive over the first stop-line just behind the bike stop line so most of the car is inside the bike box, and the car behind me would be flashing their lights and gesturing me to move forward, they are trying to school me about my driving I guess. All I can do is ignore them. 

Yesterday was particularly bad, a Volkswagen golf driver actually drove around my car and into the bike box and he had to drive over the curb for pedestrians to do it and then he gave me a look like he was schooling me about driving. When cars drive themselves then all this annoying nonsense will end. 

Eat Yourself

I recently learned that a laboratory had managed to grow human cells from a living human and build up enough of them to make a burger. The host of the cells wasn't harmed. 

They can scrape your inner cheek with a stick and take some living cells, then they grow millions of the cells in a nutrient solution until there is enough of them to make a burger. I think that technically it is cannibalism but they claim you would still be a vegetarian because no 'being' was killed to make the burger. Not sure I would try it myself.

All I would say is they should add peri peri lemon and herb sauce and halloumi cheese with a sesame seed bun to compliment the burger, and remember all the trimmings, iceberg lettuce and gherkin slice. 

Tilted floating vehicle

One thing I am greatful for is freedom to create, If I was living in poverty then I wouldn't even be able to create this blog because I wouldn't have a phone and internet connection. 

One idea that pops up in my head often is the thought that perhaps there is an easier way to create a magnetic levitation transport vehicle like a small tram. I think that if an array of permanent magnets were nested in a frame at a 45° angle and sheets of graphite were placed on a rig above the magnets also at 45° angle then they would be pushed upwards. I drew what was inside my mind. 

The two triangular shaped structures on the sides are rows of magnets that are 'North polarised' the triangular shaped rig floating at end is graphite plates that are tilted at 45° angle. The graphite mirrors the magnetic fields that pass into it and cause it to be pushed away. There are two forces acting on the rig in the middle, gravity pulling it down and the magnetic fields pushing it away at 45° angle. The two forces cancel eachother out at the edge of the magnetic fields, so it just floats in the middle and never quite touches the surface. 

The idea is so simple that I feel like I could almost build a model myself. The idea is that some of the friction and grinding is eliminated so the parts don't wear down over time. The rig never touches the surfaces that it floats over so there is no metal grinding on metal like the wheels of a train. A linear motor in the tracks is enough to propel it forwards and it has no friction to overcome in wheel bearings because it has no wheels. The vehicle would make no sound and the ride would be very smooth because there is no physical contact between the surfaces. I just need space and tools to build a small rig and test it out myself, if it doesn't work then I would learn something from the failure that is the beauty of science, even failure can be constructive because you learn what doesn't work.