Month: July 2018

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Therapeutic Massage

A short while ago I wrote about the Maidstone Sports Injury Clinic and Wellbeing, it was advertised at a gym in Maidstone. I explained that most of the stuff offered probably doesn’t work.

Today I look at Therapeutic Massage because I don’t really know what it is.

The Maidstone Wellness thingy has a page on the Massage and it explains what it is:

Therapeutic Body Massage works the soft tissue of the body, where knots, tension and muscle tightness can be found. It is from working into and around these areas that Therapeutic Body Massage can help ease stress and muscular tension.

To me that sounds like a massage. It seems that someone will massage you and you will feel better. I don’t think I have a problem with that unless there are specific medical claims made on the same page.

Guess what? There aren’t any specific medical claims. All the benefits are a bit shit and vague so that we don’t have to worry about them:

  • Reduction in muscle spasm, pain and tension
  • Release of endorphins, the body’s natural painkillers
  • Promotes relaxation, therefore reducing stress and anxiety
  • Improves blood circulation
  • Improves lymphatic drainage
  • Improves mobility

I guess if you stimulate someone then you create more blood flow and most of these claims are probably not too bad. Whether that does any good I don’t know.

I’ve had a look in PubMed, here are some of the results discussed:

Comparison of blood flow changes with soft tissue mobilization and massage therapy.
Comparison of blood flow changes with soft tissue mobilization and massage therapy.

Now, my comments. Firstly this was published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine so that automatically means it’s bollocks. However, here’s what they found: someone’s calf when rubbed with something warmer than air temperature warms up. The killer line in this study is “a rise in temperature THEORETICALLY indicates increased blood flow”. Amazing!

Therapeutic massage of the neck and shoulders produces changes in peripheral blood flow when assessed with dynamic infrared thermography.
Therapeutic massage of the neck and shoulders produces changes in peripheral blood flow when assessed with dynamic infrared thermography.

I have the same criticisms for this paper. The journal is bollocks and the whole process is bollocks.

The anatomical study of the major signal points of the court-type Thai traditional massage on legs and their effects on blood flow and skin temperature.
The anatomical study of the major signal points of the court-type Thai traditional massage on legs and their effects on blood flow and skin temperature.

This one is from a different journal, this time the Journal of Integrative Medicine, which is a bollocks journal. Note that in the conclusion they state that the results might not be clinically relevant. Quelle surprise.

This next paper seems more realistic although the abstract is barely abstract it does say that it’s all a bit vague really.

The mechanisms of massage and effects on performance, muscle recovery and injury prevention.
The mechanisms of massage and effects on performance, muscle recovery and injury prevention.

Well, it seems that massage and blood circulation are common claims but there isn’t really anything to it as no-one is able to define what circulation means. This is classic alternative “medicine”. They make deliberately vague claims because those claims aren’t medically recognised terms and therefore don’t need medical evidence.

I reckon that having a massage won’t do you any particular harm. It might even make you feel better and more relaxed. Much like reading a book or having a glass of wine. I doubt there are particular health benefits to having a massage but if it feels good, do it.

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Timing

I’m currently working through the tests and track challenges on Gran Turismo. This is largely due to a corrupted save file that lost my 400 or so cars. So, I decided to start again. It amused me that one of my sector times was:

The Devil's Coming
The Devil’s Coming

I was then amused even more when I was typing in “The Devil’s Coming” into the WordPress media file editor the following tweet appeared in my desktop side bar.

The guy’s a lying prick. Ha ha.

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Mission: Impossible – Fallout

My last movie review was a break from tradition and I’m not sure whether to return to a particular format or not. You should probably see this communication on my rating process. I went to Rochester cinema to see Mission: Impossible – Fallout. Now it had been on my radar that this one was the best in the series or something like that. I don’t read proper movie reviews, unless I see a film that has me really confused, or where the score on IMDB was a lot different from the one I gave it. The metascore on IMDB for this Mission: Impossible is 86. That’s an overall review of 86% by critics. So, I have for you my score out of 10:

This film was utter shit. I got really bored. I would have left the cinema if it hadn’t been for two people in the row of seats blocking me in, so that places this film along with Van Helsing on my scale. I spent quite a lot of this film silently screaming:

I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON

I think there might be people who could explain to me what happened and who was dealing with whom and what the politics were and why they were in Kashmir. There were two bombs in the same village? Because there’s a glacier there? I don’t understand. This film was, and I say it again, utter shite.

There was an opportunity for it to be good. Just one though. SPOILER ALERT. Right at the end when the sun shines on Ethan’s face, if that had been the bombs I would have applauded. I would have stood up and cheered. But it wasn’t and so this film was bollocks.

A couple of things I noticed though. Firstly, the helicopter used above London had the registration G-DEUP which I thought was funny because it sounds like giddy-up. I sniggered and nodded at this.

You can buy the helicopter! Click below.

Then there’s the case of the identical women. There was a woman trying to kill Ethan or the baddie, Ilsa Faust. I’m not sure. Then there was the only woman Ethan loved, Julia Meade-Hunt, his wife I think. To me these people looked the same. I couldn’t tell them apart. I was somewhat surprised when they both appeared in the same frame.

I’m not going to say much about the indestructibility of any of the characters except, THEY WOULD ALL BE DEAD after the first impact.

Last thing, microwave transmitters don’t work that way. The film just says microwaves because it sounds like science. They could have said things that really do work but scriptwriters don’t generally do science.

I should suspend my disbelief and that would be fine if the script or story was any good. I love a well made science fiction film. I can cope with FTL travel and time jumps and interplanetary travel. I can cope with aliens. I can even cope with mystical powers and magic. But the story still has to be good enough so that these things don’t really make it onto the radar. Pretty much every stunt in the MI film would have killed Ethan and so it didn’t do well with the story line part. I am still not really sure what happened or why.

I looked at a few of the IMDB reviews from critics to understand what they liked and the three I read all stated that this film was a great summer blockbuster. They did not say it was a good film, just that it was the best action movie for a summer release. Well, that explains a lot I think, it gives you the level of shit this film is.

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Quite Warm

Well, with temperatures hitting 33C today it’s time to write some stuff about this. I mean it’s so hot I have adjusted my plans for the day to keep indoors as much as possible. The hot weather is lovely. There, I said it. I can’t remember feeling cold and I am wondering about all my cold weather clothes, but it is nice to finally have a proper summer.

It feels as though the last many years have had summers where the skies have been mostly grey. While it’s been warm, the cloudiness has detracted from the feel of a proper summer and the country has looked dull. This year, the weather has been blue skies and proper clouds. It’s been good. While I was alive in 1976 I don’t remember anything about that summer. I broke my arm and the plaster kept going soft. That is all I know, but I have zero direct memories. Having looked it up on Wikipedia that summer seemed vicious. Worse than the current one in terms of temperatures.

My main problem with this heat is social. People are going to die. There will be a bump in the total deaths because heat kills people. We know the grass is pretty brown at the moment but those human deaths will come. Whether there’ll be a big news thing about it I don’t know.

The biggest problem with this weather is it highlights the problem of anthropogenic global climate change. Humans are causing a massive change in the way the Earth’s weather systems work and it will quite likely cause wars. The current heatwave pretty much covers the entire northern hemisphere. Everywhere is having a massive issue with the heat. The 1976 heatwave was pretty localised. While weather does not equal climate we should be aware that these events seem to be coming far more prevalent than they were. most predictions tell us that the extreme weather events are becoming more common. So while those stupid fuckers in the right wing press keep saying this isn’t as bad as 1947 or 1976 they don’t seem to realise that isolated events are now more common.

In this country the winters are going to become more extreme along with the summers and it doesn’t really look like there’s a massive move to try and counter this. When we study the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere we can see that we are already past the point of no return. There will be utter damage to the climate. Humans have caused this. Humans have also known for about 50 years that we are causing this. There are heavy metal songs from the 1980s going on about climate change FFS.

Eventually these changes are going to cause a massive change to the way of life. Governments around the world should be preparing their populations for this. Everyone needs nudging in the correct direction. There needs to be less individual transport. Flying needs to be reduced. Consumption needs to be reduced. Power consumption needs to be reduced. It all needs to change. Everyone needs to understand that the things they take for granted and assume they are entitled to will be gone. The world needs to change.

I am not an optimist about any of this. I don’t think that any of the political systems currently in use around the world will do anything because of the way they work. I don’t think anyone is properly preparing for this. If I expect the worst then maybe I’ll feel very slightly less bad when the billion displaced people can’t find acceptance in any country once their land disappears below sea level. I mean we can’t even accept those refugees and asylum seekers currently displaced by the shit in the current world.

Hopefully I’ll be dead before the water wars start.

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About 5 Miles

Spent a lovely time yesterday at the beach at Seasalter. It’s just west of Outer-London-Whitstable. The horizon fascinated me because of the things that can be seen.

Whitstable - the view form Seasalter
Whitstable – the view form Seasalter

Now the iPhone panorama feature didn’t leave the horizon quite as wanted but I have made an annotated version for you to explain what can be seen – just.

Seasalter Annotated
Seasalter Annotated – click to enlarge, should open in new tab

I suggest you get the full size picture by clicking on the picture above and then refer back to this page.

A

Shellness – A beach, a naturist beach,  and some posh houses on the Isle of Sheppey. 3.3 km away. There is a statue here of the Short Brothers, of aircraft fame [note to self – must visit].

B

Shoeburyness and Southend – Towns in Essex across the Thames Estuary. 23.5 km away. Other things of note would be Southend Pier and the Shoeburyness Boom, an anti-submarine device.

C

The Redsands Fort – an Army defence structure in the Thames Estuary, 14.5 km, one of the Maunsell Forts – [note to self – must visit].

"Army" style fort (Red Sands)
By Russss – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

D

The Kentish Flats Offshore Windfarm, 15 km, – a 139 MW wind power generation station, which has produced little energy during this heatwave as winds are too low.

Fort and turbines.JPG
By Charlesdrakew – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

E

Whitstable, 4 km away. The tower is part of Brett Aggregates.

The title of this communication essentially deals with the question of how far you can see to the horizon if you stand on the beach. If you are about 6 foot tall you can see about 5 miles, there’s mathematics to get this.

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ICIF Proceedings – A Selection

Selections from the transcripts of the International Court of Insurance Fraud, Filmstrasse, The Hague. Tidal conditions are irrelevant.

The Pearl
The Pearl

Judge R. Chester: State your name and occupation.

Will Sawyer: Will Sawyer, building safety investigator and licensor.

Judge R. Chester: Please tell the court a brief history of your experience.

Will Sawyer: I’m a military veteran and also SWAT team member, part of the Hostage Rescue Team. I got blown up. Lost my lower leg. My doctor fell in love with her patient but that’s not creepy at all because we are married now with twins.

Judge R Chester: Thank you. Can you please give us a run down of what happened from your point of view when the Pearl was consumed by fire.

Will Sawyer: I was employed by the owner of the building to inspect the fire and safety systems, my job was to approve the works and then the insurance company would agree to insure the Pearl.

Judge R Chester: Do you think that being paid by the building owner to approve his building is a conflict on interest?

Will Sawyer: Err, nope.

Judge R Chester: Shouldn’t this building have had insurance approved before breaking ground and then you would inspect as the construction evolved?

Will Sawyer: Err, maybe. But then we couldn’t have ripped off the story of the Nakatomi Tower.

 

Intermission.

 

Judge R Chester: Mr Sawyer, please tell us why this building was taken over by violent gangs.

Will Sawyer: The building project was blackmailed through threats of removing unionised workforce. The Pearl owner decided to pay off these criminals rather than inform the authorities and then managed to track the details of these payments through all the shitty money laundering countries. He then kept the names of these international criminals in a safe in the top of the Skyscraper. The crime bosses wanted those details removed. There are apparently copies of this file elsewhere but those aren’t explained.

Judge R Chester: How did the crime bosses intend to get the memory stick?

Will Sawyer: By setting the building on fire above the open floors it was intended to blackmail the building owner. He would hand over the names he had collected. Neglecting to mention the copies he had made.

Judge R Chester: So it didn’t really matter?

Will Sawyer: I guess not.

Judge R Chester: Let me get this right. The whole episode is moot as there were copies of the file elsewhere?

Will Sawyer: Yes.

 

Intermission.

 

Judge R Chester: Did the insurance company representative strike you as odd?

Will Sawyer: Yes, he did seem rather slimy and twisted. It was obvious he was a baddie. But, then he was in insurance and no-one likes them.

 

Intermission.

 

Judge R Chester: Was it necessary for the police to turn up at the park where you believed the ground crew were waiting with your blues and twos on?

Head Of Local Police: Yes, we always prefer to give warnings to criminals we are trying to sneak up on.

 

Intermission.

 

Judge R Chester: Did you not see the sports ground nearby within the area you were searching for the ground crew and also, how come you know so much about base jumping?

Head Of Local Police: Err, we needed an old industrial area to have a fire fight.

 

Intermission.

 

Judge R Chester: Mrs Sawyer, how come you can’t use an iPhone and what are you doing to make it stop working?

Sarah Sawyer: We’d prefer to watch Die Hard. It’s far more realistic.

Judge R Chester: Court adjourned.

 

 

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Gutted

I’m not happy. I’ve been playing Gran Turismo Sport for about six months. I had an issue in the past where my cars disappeared from the garage and I managed to fix that one using a cloud save that hadn’t updated in over a week.

This week it happened again. I remember the game crashed while moving through the menu GUI and I restarted the PS4. Then, I reloaded the game and it worked fine. I had all the cars and I completed the daily workout. I saved the game and then exited the program. Finally, because I thought it was all working well I copied the save game file to a USB stick. After that I watched some Netflix on the PS4 and so I think the PS4 transferred my save file to the PS Plus cloud save.

Next time I go to play the game all my cars, just less that 400, had gone from the garage. Only the DLC ones were visible. So, I try copying the save file form the USB stick, but that one is corrupted. Then I look at the cloud save file but that one is bad.

So, I restore the PS4 using a back up external hard drive from two months ago. That made no difference even though an old version of the save file was there. I think the GT server file must be buggered too.

My final test was to delete the entire game. Rebuild the PS4 database and then reinstall the game with its 60GB of download and then copy the two month old save file from the system restore from the USB stick, I had copied it across earlier.

Nope. Fuck you went the game. You can’t have any of that shit.

So. No cars in the garage but all my progress saved. I am currently pondering starting again from fresh. A complete new game. It’s OK. I’ll have to complete every lesson and test again and also all the circuit experience but maybe that will be fun.

 

Maybe.

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Probably Not

I went for a swim after work today, it was nice to get out of the heat for a while and get my arms moving. However, I was a little perturbed by one of the posters in the cafe area of the gym. To be honest there are many gym-type posters that are disturbing showing body shapes and types that are not achievable by most. This does seem to be changing over time as the advertising world recognises that people are who they are and don’t really buy into the perfect body. Unless you watch Love Island.

Don't Go Here
Sports Injuries

So, on first inspection this poster seems pretty good. It’s for a sports injury clinic and that should be a good thing. A special place for all to go to ensure that those niggles get sorted out. But, let’s look a little closer at some of the treatments offered:

  • Osteopathy – not a fucking thing and doesn’t do anything. Read my previous, controversial, communication.
  • Sports Massage – could be OK, I don’t really know what it entails.
  • Therapeutic Massage – again, I’m not sure what this is and I should probably discuss this in a future communication. I’ll look into it. I doubt it’s anything good.
  • Aromatherapy – massage with nice smells. Doesn’t do anything.
  • Physiotherapy – probably the only legitimate treatment on this advert. Go see a physiotherapist for those sorts of things. Don’t see woo.
  • Nutritional Therapy – most likely bollocks. If you want diet advice see a DIETICIAN, they are a proper profession. Anyone can call themselves a nutritionist.
  • Acupuncture – bollocks squared.

Look, the issue with this clinic is not that they offer some legitimate therapies the problem is that they also offer a load of bollocks and so you can’t assume they will be good at any part of their job. It’s the company you keep that defines who you are.

Don’t go here.

I’ve just had a look at the website for this clinic and it is a beauty. I will add it to my communication drafts with the hope that I one day complete writing about it.

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Incredibles 2

Yesterday I sauntered over to the cinema. It is a large quiet room with air conditioning. It is a good place to visit during this heat. If only I could bunk off work to get there also! There are two films I’d be interested in, Skyscraper [which will be terrible] and Ocean’s 8 [which would be fun]. I noticed that many of the boats were up on mud flats and that means that the tide was quite low. When I went for a run 9 hours later the tide was still quite low so I must’ve missed high tide.

I rated this film on IMDB after watching it and I’m not sure about my rating this time. You should read this communication for an explanation of the grading system.

So, what about this film? It was good, but not good enough for a score of 8. I’m not sure what I thought. It left me very slightly cold. Perhaps that is more to do with my current mood and feeling with our politicians and global leaders who are arseholes. This film was a good Pixar movie. It had your classic baddie, although I’m not really sure what she was trying to achieve. I think I need to go and read some reviews by proper journalists so I can focus my thoughts.

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Fixed Now

When I got back from cadet camp a while ago I noticed, somehow, that my internet connection bandwidth had dropped quite considerably. I think I had to restart the modem/router for some reason and when I logged into it I noticed that it was getting a download bandwidth of only 20Mb/s. Now, I say only, because I was getting 60Mb/s before I went away.

I restarted the hub a few times but this didn’t increase the capacity and I also left it for 24 hours thinking it might pick itself up. It didn’t. So I contacted BT. The low upload bandwidth was noticeable when attempting to upload pictures to the cloud and the download was affect some streaming services, although 20Mb/s was still good enough for most things.

I tried to use an online tracking fault thing the BT have on their website but navigating it was pretty terrible. Eventually I chose to use the online chat. They performed the same tests that the website interface had performed and then they asked me if I wanted to raise a fault.

Yes please.

When I managed to log in to the fault tracker it registered a voice-fault. I found this curious as I had a data fault but because they travel down the same line it was a voice-fault. BT also do mobile and TV and stuff so maybe that’s another reason for their curious naming of the fault. But, I didn’t know that so I phoned BT and said it was a broadband fault. They explained the previous bit to me and then said the engineer [who is really a technician] had found three problems at the exchange and fixed them. I should head home and restart the modem/router.

Which I did and nervously anticipated the result.

Hub Information

Well, that seems a lot better. I checked it using some external speed testers, although it’s bandwidth and not speed.

Test 1

I’m happy now. I have the broadband service that I pay for. It’s all fixed and the whole process was pretty simple. Well done BT.

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CCF Camp HLW

I’ve just got back from a wonderful week away with the RAF Air Cadets at RAF Henlow in Bedfordshire. It might not be in Bedfordshire but Bedford was the nearest largest town/city. It was a very busy week and lots got done. I had a great time and I’m pretty sure the cadets did too. We didn’t get any flying [in aircraft] but there was plenty of shooting and fun.

As is usual we arrived on the Saturday and got settled in. Then Sunday was a day at a country pursuits experience. We went to the English School Of Falconry quite close to the Cardington Hangars. There were planes from Old Warden flying around showing off including a Percival, Lysander, Hurricane and Spitfire.

Cleared For Landing
Cleared For Landing

We all had a go at landing birds of prey and then some archery, air rifles and laser clay pigeon shooting. It was a baking day, really hot.

Monday was filled with some camp admin, getting the right forms delivered to the right people while the cadets visited the RAF’s Centre for Aviation Medicine. I found this particularly interesting as I’m currently reading a book about the development of the pressure suit and it has a lot of medicine development in it. The camp photo infront of the Hawker Hunter gate guardian and then a church service for the RAF100 Baton. I, somehow, didn’t make it to the service but I did get there just in time for another selfie with the baton. My first was at Amport House.

Later that day the cadets had a brief for a Rocketeers challenge they were going to take part in and then in the evening I ran a DCCT range over the other side of the Henlow base. We nearly got stuck in the base as they locked the gate at 21:30 and we finished at 21:25.

Tuesday we visited the RAF Museum at Hendon and in the evening the cadets watched the football match. I went for a run.

Sepecat Jaguar
Sepecat Jaguar

Wednesday morning the RAF Outreach team came to run the cadets through a disaster response planning exercise. After that we headed to Twinwoods Adventure for indoor sky diving. Twinwoods was based on the old Royal Aeronautical Establishment site and actually used the vertical wind tunnel that was developed for investigating flat spin aerodynamics.

RAE Vertical Windtunnel
RAE Vertical Windtunnel

The skydiving experience was fantastic and I really enjoyed it. It was such a high to finish and contemplate the second flight.

I don’t think you can explain just what it’s like to do this. Such an exhilarating time. Wednesday evening I ran another DCCT range practice with the cadets doing the shoot to qualify for their “trained shot” badge.

Thursday was my big day. I had spent hours since arriving at Henlow preparing to run my first outdoor 25m 5.56 full bore range. For whatever reason the CC couldn’t do it and so it fell to me to run the thing. There were range orders to read and a RAM to write along with all the briefings etc. I planned the day so that cadets could qualify for their “marksman” badge. To give you an idea of what it’s like, imagine having six lanes of semi-automatic weapons and 900 rounds to be shot. Then put the rifles in the hands of teenagers. Now, we follow the safe system of operation but it is still an intimidating amount of responsibility.

The day went very smoothly and I was happy with the number of cadets who qualified for the marksman badge.

Thursday evening we dined out at a pub near the base, The Airman. The company was great and the food was ok. The next day one of the schools had to leave for a school event because normally we would hold this meal on the last night.

A Sexy Hangar
A Sexy Hangar

The hangars at Henlow were designed and built before the end of the first world war and they have a beautiful look about them.

Friday I judged the drill competition, went for a run and helped supervise the block clean up. In the evening we watched the Battle Of Britain on the large screen and essentially just chilled. It was a fantastic week and I am really looking forward to next year’s trip.

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More Comparisons

Having calculated [or rather tested] that my house uses 2kWh of energy per day when nearly everything is turned off I thought I ought to work out how far that would drive my car.

In this communication I wrote about the energy usage of my car, Bora Horza Gobuchul. I use 50kWh of energy for every 100km I drive, on average.

So, the energy I use to power my house; the fridge, a few clocks and the ADS-B receiver, would drive my car about 4km. That’s not quite enough to get me to work, but it would get me to the nearest supermarket.

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