A few communications ago I wrote about the energy consumption of different cars. I thought I would try and give some perspective to this. Now, I haven’t done the mathematics at this point and so will be writing this as I go. I don’t know what the results are going to be.
My car, Bora Horza Gobuchul, uses 50 kWh of energy, roughly, every 100 km I drive. Given that my insurers believe I drive about 10,000 miles per year that’s a grand total of:
8000 kWh per year
Let’s see how much this costs in fuel alone. 10,000 miles is about 200 gallons of petrol, which gives, at prices of £1.20 per litre, £1,080 per year on fuel alone.
I have a small Victorian house. While it is small it has poor thermal efficiency. It has brick-thick walls with no cavity insulation and is draughty. I do have a chimney balloon in one of the chimneys and the other is boarded up. The bathroom and kitchen stick out the back and are cold all year.
A Year’s Energy
I use gas for heating, hot water and hob cooking. I use electricity for some heating and then appliances and light. As the graph above shows I used 10.5 MWh of energy in the house last year [assuming the meters are correctly calibrated]. This cost me £840 for the year.
So, loosely speaking, the amount of energy I have used to transport me and a 1.5 tonne car around is about 30% more than that I’ve used to live in my home. Considering the time I spend in the car is minimal compared to my house this seems a poor deal. Granted, my car moves around relative to the Earth but this just goes to show how much energy is needed for transportation.
The costs turn up the following figures for comparison:
House £0.08 per kWh
Car £0.135 per kWh
I think it’s time to start voting Green. We also need to start a massive system to change societies need for personal, inefficient transport. There needs to be a cultural change and it needs to start now. It’ll take 20 years to change behaviours and it’s quite likely already too late.
I made it to the South Foreland Lighthouse yesterday in weather that can be described as atmospheric [as can all weather, literally]. There was sun, rain and some haze. France could be seen at times but not all the time. I don’t have a picture here of the light house so you’ll have to imagine what it’s like but the tour was interesting and, once again, I find myself amazed at how ingenious we humans are.
St Margaret’s Bay
The lighthouse was built to warn seafarers of the dangers of Goodwin Sands where over a thousand ships lay wrecked. It is also the first place that an international radio transmission was made, by Marconi, of course.
Dover Harbour
The light turns by the use of food to human energy turned into potential gravitational energy. A large mass is raised by hand and the energy contained within that turns the 3 tonne light system as it drops. The lighting system floats on a tub of mercury, this reduces the drag to manageable proportions. Remarkable.
There is a tea house and also a cottage attached to the lighthouse. The guide mentioned that the place was quiet and normally they are very busy and the lighthouse is packed.
Essentials
Being here made me realise just how busy the Dover Straights are and how much traffic moves through the port.
Count Them
And so, as we prepare to leave the EU, this fine town of Dover voted OUT but will find itself fucked over as our incompetent Government fails to secure the best deal for the security and economy of this country.
Also, I managed to get this far without mentioning Nazis.
Sometimes, just to irk my ire, I sometimes have a look at the Daily Mail Online. I have a bad habit of reading the headlines on newspapers whenever I go into a newsagents and that often leads me to distress as it’s clear to see the agenda that the mostly right wing press is pushing to those who still read these pieces of shit. Every now and then I glance down the front page of the DM online edition just to see what the world’s most popular website is saying.
Not since 1970
This might seem to be an innocent headline given the toxic racist bullshit the DM usually peddles but there’s more to it than that. This headline is DESIGNED to reinforce the idea that a system of measurement when Britain was GREAT is still in use by some and the baby boomer generation should be proud of using Fahrenheit. Let’s be clear on two three fronts:
Fahrenheit hasn’t been used by the Met Office since 1970. Get the fuck over it you old arseholes.
Baby-boomers are the ones who have taken the most from this country and then fucked it over for the younger generations.
The younger generations are slowly getting their shit together and are going to take over. I can’t wait.
Have a look at news headlines and see the derision placed upon the younger lot by the old.
Time
The front page version of this headline had CAN’T in block capitals. As though reading a clock with hands is something that people SHOULD be able to do.
WHY?
This generation spend absolutely no time looking at analogue clocks so why should we expect them to be able to use one in an examination hall? Have a look around railway stations and airports. See any analogue clocks? Nope, didn’t think so. This headline is there again to push the idea that any change from the values of the baby-boomer generation are bad changes. GTFOI.
[apologies for irks and ire which mean roughly the same thing]
There’s a competition where I work involving the still image. I have entered with one of the following photographs. I have been meaning to take a collection of photos of the place for a number of years. There are certain aspects of the buildings that I find curious and interesting. I think they would make good images if taken from the correct angle. Sneaking in to take these photos has been on my “holiday to-do list” for a number of years but I’ve never got around to it.
Anyway. Here are four shots I took this week. No explanation, just interesting images IMHO.
Ready StatusReflections Of GrandeurHidden PlacesA Railway
Went to the cinema this evening to see Rampage. Now, I hadn’t seen any of the trailers – I don’t tend to watch them. All I had was the film poster. Before the film I went for a walk along the wharf, not a Worf that would be weird, and noted that the tide was neither in nor out. There was a low level bubbling sound from the mud banks slowly draining their contained water, it was a relaxing sound.
Tidal Medway
As is usual I rated this film on IMDB. You should see this guide to the system within this communication.
It was a terrible film and got worse as it went on. I didn’t even notice one of the main plot points although the camera shot at that exact spot struck me as strange but I didn’t work out why they had done that. I had to ask my neighbour at the end of the film how the antidote got into George.
Chicago didn’t look a whole lot different at the end of the film. Still a trashy place.
The tide was in when I left. The water level was higher than two hours previously.
A couple of random things in this communication [aren’t they always? I hear you cry].
firstly, a while ago there was some lovely helicopter noise over my house late at night. I looked it up on my flight tracker and discovered the Army Air Corps had passed exactly over my house.
The Army Air Corps just flew over my house!
Well, not all of it, just two people. pic.twitter.com/T2itJDcKkh
Then, last night, while looking for the rain storms that were meant to be hitting the UK I noticed a Royal Moroccan Air Force Gulstream circling above the Essex – Hertfordshire border.
RMAF Heading to Stansted
I followed this for a while wondering where it was heading, eventually it turned towards Stansted airport and I didn’t follow it all the way.
RMAF Heading to Stansted
My suspicion is that this flight had some dignitary on board heading for medical treatment in London. The Saudis do this quite often and you can see their planes land at Stansted. The rail links are pretty quick as are road ways and even helicopter flights. The security is top-notch there too as it is where Air Force One lands with POTUS.
Gulfstream and Thunderstorms
The above picture shows the thunderstorms heading over the UK along with the RMAF Gulfstream track.
A friend mentioned recently that he was thinking of buying a Nissan Leaf 2.0 and it got me to thinking what the running costs are. For this communication I’m not worried about purchase or servicing costs so this comparison isn’t a very good one but it is somewhere to start!
My car, Bora Horza Gobuchul, is a petrol/electric hybrid. Just your standard hybrid NOT a plug in hybrid. So it’s battery is charge either through regenerative braking or excess energy being produced by the engine, when at a standstill for example. My average fuel consumption rate is 55 mpg. Current petrol costs are about £1.20 per litre. This means my current driving costs are:
£6.20 per 100km
This is a variable though. The price of petrol is subject to many factors and changes constantly. The mileage achieved driving Bora Horza Gobuchul depends on how well it is driven!
The Nissan Leaf 2.0 is currently the latest ALL Electric vehicle developed by Nissan. It is a plug in car and so runs using electricity only. The manufacturer claims a range of 168 miles and a battery capacity of 40kWh. My current electricity tariff charges me 15.3 pence per kWh and the driving costs for the Leaf are:
£2.26 per 100km
The Tesla Model S claims a range of 220 miles with a battery capacity of 60kWh. This produces a driving cost of:
£2.59 per 100km
This comparison is VERY basic. It covers just the cost of charging the vehicle. I have not taken ANYTHING else into consideration but I am quite surprised at how much cheaper the electric cars are in terms of cost per 100km for driving. This alone would tempt me greatly if I had a garage where I could park my car. However, somewhere, a space, to park my car every day next to my house is my current dream. That is what happens when you live in a crowded Victorian street.
Just another minor comparison: energy consumed per 100km:
50kWh – Bora Horza Gobuchul
14.8kWh – Nissan Leaf
17.0kHw – Telsa Model S
This just shows the inefficiency of petrol based engines for transport. So, my current plan is: get house with garage, buy Tesla, save the planet.
Foremost, be warned I am struggling with this one. I have spent the last 18 hours wondering what rating to give it. I’m concerned I’m in a bad mood but don’t think so, I’m just puzzled by this film. But first, there are routines to get through.
I went, on a glorious sunny day, to sit in the dark at the Cineworld cinema in [not] Rochester. I now comment on the tide, as the river is tidal, at this point. The tide was in and I took a pretty picture to confirm that. If you look carefully you can see the historic Rochester castle and cathedral.
High Tide Rochester
I rated this film on IMDB and you should read this communication about the scoring system. This is where the controversy starts I think:
So, I should now go ahead and explain my rating and thoughts.
Bad Thing
This film started by playing “Jump” by Van Halen. This is a good song, it’s iconic, but I was instantly reminded that a good soundtrack does not make the film. Suicide Squad was a shit film but had a great soundtrack of classic 80s songs that everyone knows. So, let’s ignore the music.
Bad Thing
I don’t think the voice over was necessary. Films are made better without exposition. Build your explanations into the film, release the details slowly. Make the audience earn the story. Let’s ignore that.
Good/Bad Thing
There were so many 80s cultural references, along with a glaring one from 1991 and Terminator 2, that these were unsubtle. They were rammed into your retina. I guess I missed many as I’m not a massive 80s whore, but my mate Pom would get more. I think he’d like that part of the film. This film is like a greatest hits of popular culture.
An Aside
If pop-culture is the stuff that is popular does culture mean all that upper class shit that critics like? The stuff that isn’t popular? Should that be called culture?
Impressive Thing
The CGI was hugely impressive. We have been at the point of photo-realism for years now and there are many parts of films that are CGI but I don’t think people realise. It’s a cheap way to lend credibility to a film by adding small details. So, the virtual world looked and felt fantastic. Well done [although it’s not outside the realms of technology or new].
Annoying Thing
The avatars of the characters were remarkably like their IRL characters. Their facial features were quite Cameron’s Avatar like. This is probably to avoid the uncanny valley. The oriental characters were played in-game by oriental builds. The large kid chose to be an over-modded large character and the lead turned out to be white kid. They all played their own gender and they all kept their real life features. This was bollocks. It was Hollywood.
More Annoying Thing
All the clan in the game came from pretty much the same area of the USA?? What utter rubbish. The idea that online players in this game would be anywhere near each other was appalling.
While We Are At It
The girl didn’t think she was “pretty” in real life. She didn’t want to meet the lead character. Well, it turns out she IS pretty. All she has is a birth mark that covers here eye. IT’S NOT EVEN A BAD BIRTHMARK. What bollocks, this was very annoying.
Slums
The futuristic slum area was essentially just a trailer park made futuristic. Do you know what? I’m happy with that. I liked it.
VR
There has to be a point where developers decide whether to include force feedback into suits and movement or not. I suspect it will go ahead because: porn. So, the IRL people have walkways so that their movements are mimicked in the game. But, how does the flying and dancing work? What about INERTIA? Why are people in the streets playing the game? Are they walking form one place to another? Can they see the real world while they are in the game? I don’t understand.
Being in a computer game doesn’t give you superhuman reactions. You just can’t run, race, fight, fly, drive at those speeds and still react as a human. It might be that the apologetic is that the game avatars have extra modifications that allow them to react within the game to threats. This I guess is a good explanation but the speed of the gaming and fight scenes along with the driving section was implausible.
Beating The Game
When you are facing a bigger opponent in a game and you are going to lose all your coin why don’t you just quit and leave the game. That makes sense to me.
Story Arc [SPOILERS]
White american kid takes on a corporation with his friends. He gets the girl. Wins riches beyond his dreams and frees the world. Such bullshit.
It was nice to see Hannah John-Kamen again.
Now, I’ve been writing this stuff down I can see that I just wasn’t impressed. Yes, there are great songs and brilliant references to other films but once you remove that stuff the overall story and ideas are just pretty poor.
I went to see a friend and we met up at Audley End house near Saffron Walden. It is a lovely garden and classic English country house.
Third Of Original Size
The gardens were designed by Capability Brown, the house is old. I didn’t get to look inside because after walking the dog the house was shut to new visitors. It’s quite an impressive building.
We, as a country, like to visit these places. We like to keep them as part of our history and they are definitely part of our history. The problem is houses like this are part of the problems of our current too.
Odd For Essex?
These buildings serve to act as reminders that the people are subservient to the masters. We are to do as we are told and assume that those in charge are looking after us. This building is built to impress but also oppress. The modern visitor has little thought for the structure of society and the machine it has to keep everyone in their place.
The leaders lead and rule and at the same time those below that level are constantly told of our position and that we should do as we are told. The upper classes assume the position of lord of the manor while the rest of us live in shit. There is a perception that the leaders and chiefs will do what is good for the whole of society. But the vast majority of them don’t. Look at the current political leaders. They will do whatever they can to maintain their power at the expense of the country and population as a whole.
I look at these houses and churches and see the waste of money. The consumption of the planet for the greed of the few. The repression of the masses for the stability of a family.
I was using my favourite aircraft tracking site 360Radar when I noticed that they have built in the terminator into the view:
Sunset
In this picture you can see the lines of the terminator, the line of the end of sunlight across the globe. But, it’s more complicated than that isn’t it? There are two lines and I suspect that one is the onset of sunset and the other is when the sun has dropped below the horizon. Rather, what happens is that the Earth rotates more so the Sun drops below the local horizon.
That gets you to thinking about sunset and when it is. According to Wikipedia, which is a perfectly good reference for most things scientific, sunset is the moment the sun dips below the horizon. After that there are different types of twilight!:
I hope this doesn’t over complicate issues too much for you all.
One of the things that humans like to do is have simple black and white answers for all problems. We can’t live in a society without rules. We need them to ensure we give everyone a similar set of values and guidelines. We use heuristics all the time. These are brain shortcuts so we don’t have to think about things from the very start. Stereotyping is an heuristic. It allows us to make quick judgements about people so that we don’t have to think too much. The problem is that stereotyping is wrong most of the time and our brain is wrong. Heuristics while brain efficient are mostly wrong.
The question “when is twilight” leads to a multitude of different types and times. Most things in society aren’t really black and white. There are always complications. There are always times when other factors seem important. We love these rules but often they need to be tempered by knowing the circumstances. The media like forcing that black or white notion, they like to implement simple thinking in society to make everything simple. Most people don’t want to think about things or over complicate them. Most people want a simple life where they don’t have to think or consider others.
It’s good to learn that we should always spend extra brain power thinking about the issues are reasons more. As the author Ben Goldacre put it:
I think you’ll find it’s more complicated than that.
I have just returned from a lovely couple of days away at Amport House in Hampshire. It’s a lovely setting near Andover where the Armed Forces Chaplaincy Centre is housed. I spent time there on an ACO Personal Awareness Course. Although the course is based at the chaplaincy centre it is a non-religious course which is probably just as well for me as I am completely not-religious and verging on anti-religious. However, the centre made sure that my bedroom was closest to the chapel and my door was literally next door to the chapel organ.
Room With A View
There were a number of cadets there from all over the country. It was a good mix and they all got along quite quickly. This bonding does tend to happen as they already have a common interest. The whole weekend was non-uniform and first names only, even for staff-cadet relationships. This made it an environment suited for the discussions we had. The aim was to raise the personal awareness of the cadets in an intra and inter-personal way. They were tasked to think about dealing with others but also knowing themselves. I am sure all the cadets got a great deal from the experience and it is unlike any other course available in our pseudo-military organisation.
Amport House
The house itself has been in the military since the second world war. It has always been used for the chaplaincy and is currently the centre for the Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force. The gardens were designed by Lutyens and Jekyll and are grade one listed, they are lovely.
Lutyens Jekyll Garden
Part of the garden was the oldest pleached limes in the country. These are lime trees which have been trained over many years to provide a hedge. These particular ones are designed so that courting couples could walk in privacy between the trees but the chaperones could see their feet and ensure they didn’t get too close to each other from outside the centre walkway.
Pleached Limes
It would have been nice to see these in bloom and leaved but maybe next time. On the whole it was a good weekend and I really enjoyed myself. Sitting outside during a break ready a book surrounded by such a wonderful setting was delightfully relaxing.
You see, sometimes the news headline writers don’t get it right. Below is the front page headline from BBC News.
Pay Gap Headline
It makes it look as though firms are rushing to publish their details because they want to. They want the world to know how much they don’t pay women. It makes it look like there’s a race to publish, like they really want to get that information out there. But, when you click, you get more details:
Reality
This article goes on the explain the reality. Firms are behind in publishing their details. It’s funny isn’t it, the original headline makes it look as though companies can’t wait whereas the reality is they haven’t been bothered to publish the details so far. Perhaps it’s time for new headline writers but not those employed at the Daily Mail though.
I have spent some time recently learning to be bored. I guess what I really mean is trying to learn to give up social media and put my phone down.
[I’d like to propose that mobile phones are no longer called phones, or telephones. They are now Portable Digital Devices and I rarely use mine as a phone. These devices need re-branding. The name needs to change to reflect their usage. I suggest PDA. This is controversial because PDAs were used in the early 90s and they died. They didn’t succeed because mobile phones came and took over. That is capitalism or progress I guess. So, Portable Digital Assistants need a revival. It more accurately describes the function of the rectangle of black in your palm.]
There are four main reasons that I have opted to try and get bored more often. One is Brexit, then there is Trump along with all the “stupid” and finally there is All The HATE.
I have a couple of twitter accounts. In one of them I follow a few people and use it to communicate with friends. The other account is full of random people and politicians who I follow for the news and pictures of aeroplanes. Over the last couple of years I have noticed that my overall personal mood has reflected the level of crap I see on twitter. I would look at my twitter feed every hour or so and catch up with what’s happening. But quite often the anger, rage and shock supplied by people on twitter was reactionary. It wasn’t considered or sensible.
I would react emotionally. I would re-tweet people I follow. I would become annoyed and enraged at the injustices I saw. It felt like everything I held to be good about the world was deteriorating.
When you read tweets about what racist shit the foreign secretary has said, try to understand trump, see the hatred towards minorities, see the hatred of the religious, see the twisted responses by people with internet-balls, see the hatred and such low level of discourse, then you start to feel worried about the state of the world.
If you can’t manage a walk to the corner shop without staring at your phone, then maybe you need to stop and put it down.
I removed the other account on from my phone about a month ago. I also have stopped the side-bar on my PC from popping up with that twitter account. I try to get my news from a couple of websites and the radio.
I constantly worry that I am missing out on a gorgeous photograph of an airplane. I worry that something might be happening in the world that needs my attention. This is FOMO I guess. I understand the troubles of generations younger than me who have never known anything else. That constant connectivity to a world of opinion and thought. Here’s the news for you people: humans aren’t “built” to cope with all that. Also, and this might be news to you, getting bored is a good thing.
I will add some provisos to that last statement. Make sure your mental and emotional health is good before trying to get bored. You don’t want to end up in a cycle of bad thoughts while out and about doing nothing.
Our best ideas and processing comes when we are bored. We have the chance to think and ponder and imagine. We should learn to put PDAs down. For an hour at a time to start. Then we can increase that. I’ve tried to leave my phone in the other room. I’m almost at that stage when I sometimes can’t remember where my phone is in my house. I hope to get better at this over the next while. Keep a book nearby, you know a printed book.
It’s important to switch off. To chill out. To wander the streets/countryside while pondering.
I consider myself pretty lucky to be living in this part of the island. On Saturday while driving to Essex I noticed a little plane doing a dance over Brands Hatch race track. It was a Spitfire. One of the plucky planes that protected this land in 1940 during the Battle Of Britain. Mind you, the Hurricane got more and was used more, but it’s not quite a pretty is it? The skies above Kent were where this battle took place and it is still where these planes can be seen regularly. One day though, they will be gone. I try to stop and stare when I see them.
Lovely to see a spitfire putting on a display over Brands Hatch yesterday as we drove by on the M20.
Then, while out for a run yesterday I spotted two things that made me think. Another Spitfire flew overhead, possibly heading to Brands Hatch again or maybe just out for a little trip for fun. I didn’t get my phone out quick enough to get a photo and it would have looked terrible as the zoom is appalling. One day, these beasts will be gone.
Later in my run I ran by the Allington Lock section of the Medway. This little boat caught my eye:
One Of The Originals
This little ship, just moored there on the Medway took part in the evacuation from Dunkirk. It was originally built as a Watson Class Lifeboat and then named:
Rosa Wood & Phyllis Lunn, 1932 – 1973
She’s now in private hands and long may she sail the waters. There’s plenty more information on the National Historic Ships Register. One day, these things will be gone.
It is impressive to see this history around us. It’s everywhere, there’s plenty to see. I don’t even know a lot about the local history but I’m constantly fascinated by pretty much everything I see.
I took a trip to see the Isle Of Dogs recently and as is custom I will now comment on the level of the tide: It was out. The journey was long and winding, Bull Lane, Pilgrims Way, A229, M2, A2, Blackwall Tunnel Southern Approach, East India Dock Road, A1206 and then you are there. A rediscovered cool place of London. The bit that dangles like a testicle from the north shore of the river Thames.
I have spent a few lovely times here, I have also spent some shit times here. But that, I guess, is how life goes. It’s almost like I’m teasing you for future stories and communications, which I am, but I’m not sure I’ll ever get around to writing them.
I also went to see a film called the Isle Of Dogs, perhaps I should really have seen the film while on the Isle Of Dogs, I missed an opportunity there! I rated the film on the Internet Movie Database and you should probably look over the scoring system in this communication.
