Category: Personal

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Mapping My World

I play a lot of Minecraft. I’ve been into it since the start of the first pandemic lockdown when my kids talked a lot about it and I decided it’d be nice to know what they are talking about. So I gave it a go. I have loved it every since. I mean, I made a YouTube series on my megabuild in one of our worlds.

It was an interesting experience doing the recordings once the build was complete. I had to learn how to play the game, or at least wander around, while also talking about what I have done and I found that quite tricky at first and so there were plenty of recordings that I deleted for quality purposes. I am also not going to edit the videos once recorded because that’s a level of caring I don’t have.

For a long time I have used some software t create maps of my world. I know this is cheating to a certain extent but I have decided that it’s ok to do somethings but not others. I think it’s ok to have a map and I think it’s ok to have coordinates turned on. Other than that I don’t employ any other “cheats”. I have played in some worlds with teleporting and keep inventory turned on but to be quite frank that makes it too easy. There should be an element of death and destruction within the game. The random things are what make it interesting for me. So, I don’t really play in creating mode, in fact I’ve only ever been in creative mode once, and I don’t have many “cheats” turned on. Everything I have done is in survival mode, because it’s more interesting to me.

Map Of The Land
Map Of The Land

The above map shows the area of my current base. Once the Caves And Cliffs Part One update was released I went a long way in the nether and popped out wherever it was in the overworld. The aim was to generated new areas of the world using the latest version of Minecraft. I suspect that I’ll do this again once the Part 2 update comes out and start a new-new base there.

Things to note in the map of my world are the mob-spawner just SE of the centre of the map along with an island, called New Holland, just SW of the spawner. The island is around 70% man-made in terms of area and houses my slave villagers and farm animals. There are two iron-golems there to protect the villagers which is nice I guess. It is my trading area. From the villagers I have easy access to mending and silk touch enchantments for tools. Over the next while I think I need to look more into potions and learn how they work.

Just left of centre in the map is my portal to the nether where I popped out originally when finding a new area for the latest update. There are three railways that connect this hub with the island, the spawner and my crop farm and storage area. Just NE of centre is my crop farm – currently wheat and potatoes – along with a subterranean storage area and my bed on top of a hill nearby. I’ll see if I can get some screenshots or do a video walk around of this new base area. I should probably do a video of the old base area in this world although I think I wrote about it here.

For information, the mapping software I use is called bedrock-viz for Minecraft Bedrock Visualiser. It works on the server map files and turns them into a webpage that works similar to google maps. So, if you are running your Minecraft world on a PC and you know where the database files are and you are comfortable taking copies of those then you can probably use the software. I also FTP the files to a webspace so I can see the map on a laptop screen while I’m playing, it’s a little small on my phone. I like it and I find it really helpful just for getting around the place. It’s just enough of a help that it’s worth it and not a silly amount of cheating that I think it’s ok to use. To give you an idea of what it does here is what it looks like at level 13 under my base:

Level 13 Overworld
Level 13 Overworld

In the real version of the map you are able to zoom in and hover over blocks to see the coordinates so that’s really helpful. In the picture above you can see water and bubble columns – blue and light blue – along with geodes. The yellow bits are gold and the dull yellow is iron. Bright blue is diamond and red is redstone, green squares are emeralds but once you’ve got a trading farm going with villagers who cares about mining for emeralds?

Communication number 1924 and here’s a selection of stuff that happened then:

  • A radio time signal is broadcast for the first time.
  • An explosion in a mine in West Virginia kills 119.
  • 400 indigenous people of Toba are massacred.
  • Belgium introduces an eight hour work day.
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The Last Letter From Your Lover

After finally recycling all the crap from my garden at the Cuxton dump I went to the cinema at Rochester [not in Rochester, actually in Strood] to see The Last Letter From Your Lover. I noted the state of the tide as I drove to the car park and it was middling, I didn’t know whether it was going in or out but after the film it was definitely close to high tide, so now we know. After seeing the film I rated it on IMDB and then tweeted the result, there’s a whole system to all of that explained in this communication.

I almost didn’t go and see this film. I parked the car and pondered whether I actually wanted to see a romance film and I nearly went home to “waste” a few hours in the current Minecraft world that I have. But, I was here and I won’t have a chance to get to the cinema for a while so I decided it was going to be a positive experience. Upon entering the theatre I scanned the crowd [about 30 people] and I think I was the only man in the room – oh well. I’ve seen other films like that, when there’s been people not like me and me and I coped.

I enjoyed this film. It was a perfectly good piece of artwork and was a pleasant watch. While driving back home I was reminded of my maternal grandmother who went to the cinema quite a bit and she would have enjoyed this film. I remember chatting to her about a film she had seen once and she said it was a good film but there wasn’t the need for all the bad language. She wasn’t that much into swearing which was probably a generational thing? I swear a lot.

This film was focussed on the relationship between two couples spread over time and it was a kind of “love triumphs over all” message. I’m not sure I would have had that as my overall message, I’m not sure that’s a particularly healthy thing for people to think. I don’t think people should dwell too much on lost loves and I don’t believe in “true love”. I tend to think it’s just chemicals and we aren’t “destined” to be with someone, and we aren’t “soul mates” with anyone. I do understand emotional attachment though.

So, here’s my thing: for me the issue with this film was the inequality in relationships that has existed in societal expectations and the Law over the years. We see the 1960s couple at dinner and the MAN tells the wife basically to shut up with her intelligent ideas because she can’t know these things, she’s just a pretty woman. We see this couple argue over divorce and the law and society was so anti-female in those days that really I would make more of this in the film. I have massive issues with inequality that has existed over time and still does exist in our current society. I guess we kind of hope we are the best that we can be but just look around at how people are treated and you’ll see that it’s all a work in progress and sometimes that progress is negative.

Anyway, it’s a nice film. As this is communication number 1921 here’s what happened then:

  • The Jaffa riots kill about 100 people.
  • The province of Northern Ireland is created.
  • Between 100 and 300 people are killed in the Tulsa Race Riots.
  • Russian famine begins. 5,000,000 die.
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Professional Recovery Doubt

I recently went to Bluewater to buy some socks. I could have gone to other places but I needed to be out the house for a couple of hours until it was time to go to the cinema. I didn’t really want to buy anything else but I figured that I could see what the world looked like and wander the halls of capitalism a few times. Too many people were without masks in my opinion and so I am not sure I’ll be heading out to busy places anytime soon. The CV-19 situation right now in the country is not good even though everyone is treating it as though the world is back to normal. Anyway, while wandering the halls of Bluewater I saw two products being sold by pop-up stalls that sparked alerts in my head. One of these was a Bosch odour remover that has really piqued my curiosity, it’s £250 if you are interested. I think I’d rather just wash my clothes and not be a sticky arse. The product I’m going to write about here is the Recovapro.

A centre-of-the-aisle store had a bunch of massagers and some staff ready to demonstrate how they work. I wandered past initially but I did wonder if they make any unrealistic claims when speaking to people or in their literature. On the second pass I took one of the leaflets, more to remember to write about them and see what claims they make.

Recoverpro bookletDownload

From the leaflet the Recovapro will relieve aches and pains. It is passionately used and trusted by athletes and sporting professionals who take wellness and recovery seriously[I wasn’t aware that athletes aren’t sporting professionals but there you are]. The benefits are:

  • Encourage blood circulation.
  • Relieve muscle soreness and stiffness.
  • Promote muscle warm up and recovery.
  • Naturally relieves chronic and acute pains.
  • Relaxes the body for better sleep.
  • Improves range of motion and flexibility.

All of these things seem to be vague claims about self limiting situations with regards to the body. Aches and pains go away by themselves. If you think you have better motion then you will report better motion whether you really do or do not. People consider this the placebo effect but in reality the placebo effect is just a scientific way of saying no real effect but self-reported results are boosted due to self-delusion. I have no idea whether the Recoverpro does or does not do any of the things claimed. Apparently this product is “clinically proven” and I will investigate that a little later.

The leaflet has a section on why it works. All of these five statements are more about how the device works in a mechanical sense rather than how it actually affects the body and so I’m writing off that page of the leaflet. Next section is about the benefits which is really a list of parts of the body and descriptions of what those bits of the body do. This page sounds quite sciency too. More information about how to use the product which is really a list of screen shots of YouTube videos showing how the device can be placed upon your body. The YouTube videos seem to claim that the device will “treat” particular areas of the body but I’m pretty sure it’s just how to contact the device with your skin.

The next page in the leaflet is a bunch of reviews on Trustpilot and I couldn’t give a shit about what other people think their device does. Testimonials are the worst kind of evidence possible and so this page is ignored and always should be. Recoverpro then answer the question “Why are we the best?” with a list of technical specifications compared with the competitors. There isn’t really anything here to explain why they are the best, just a bunch of numbers. These things cost GBP229 which seems a lot of money to me.

There isn’t really anything in the leaflet that makes enforceable claims. They mention wellness which isn’t a legally defined term and anyone can claim they can improve wellness. The other claims are all rather vague and have no scientific meaning. The use the work “treat” on the YouTube videos but then make no claims as to what they are treating or how it works and so there is a legitimate claim that they aren’t claiming they can treat actual diseases and injuries. This is all rather worrying really for a device that costs, what I consider, a lot of money.

I emailed the company and said I was interested in their product [true] but wondered what actual clinical evidence they had for it working. This is what I wrote:

I'm interested in your device but would like to see the clinical proof that you have. Could you send me a pdf [or similar] of what evidence you have that shows this device works as you claim? I'm super interested but it's quite a bit of money for me at the moment.

I got back a response and I was hoping they would have some decent clinical trials or science to back up their claims. As I said earlier the worst kind of evidence entirely is anecdotal and so I wanted something a little more formal. The whole reason science developed is that humans are very good at misleading themselves and so we have methods for ascertaining what is really going on. These methods, called science, remove all the human factors when done well. Don’t get me wrong there’s plenty about science that isn’t great but overall and in the long run it is a process that works and self-corrects. The response from the company was this:

On our website you can find a varied array of blogs, articles, stories and reviews showcasing how the Recovapro can help muscle tightness, aches and pains. Likewise, it is utilised by many physiotheraposts, masseurs and athletes.

So, on the website there are stories, blogs and reviews. None of this is good evidence to back up what the company claims. I was hoping for a little more. It’s a shame that all they have is anecdote. The fact that people use this device is not evidence that it works. The fact that people have spent over GBP200 on a device and think it helps them is not a surprise. I have spent money on amplifiers in the past and the more I spend the better quality the sound. It’s a bit like wine really, the more things cost the better the person thinks they are. I’m doubtful as to whether this device is a revolutionary as the company claims. I think it is just an expensive Hitachi Magic Wand with better marketing. Next time I am in the shopping centre I might see what health claims the people selling this actually make but this would also require me to get past my fear of actually talking to people.

Hitachi-magic-wand.jpg
By The Medical Center for Female Sexuality (MCFS) – GFDL, Link

This is communication number 1919 and so, in keeping with a recent trend on this site, here are some of the things that happened in that year:

  • The great molasses flood killed 29 in Boston.
  • There are riots in Glasgow over working hours.
  • Amanullah Khan becomes King of Afghanistan.
  • There’s a race riot in Chicago.
  • The 1918 flu pandemic officially ends.
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The Suicide Squad

My first real day after completing the sleeping system and so I must go to the cinema. There wasn’t a lot on really and so I almost flipped a coin between The Suicide Squad and The Last Letter From Your Lover, which I still might go and see. Driving along Chariot Way I could see that the tide was very much high, small waves lapping at the edges of the mudbanks and leaves poking through the surface of the river.

After watching this movie I rated it on IMDB. Actually I rated it the day after because there are issues with tweeting something when you have removed Twitter from your phone. I think that possible the scoring isn’t as raw as it should be but I just need to remember to follow the guidance I established in this communication. I guess I also need to point out that this film, The Suicide Squad, is different to one I watched in 2016 called Suicide Squad. Here’s the result:

I actually really enjoyed this film. It’s silly and funny and over the top. I guess it’s a bit like Deadpool but with more characters. The film had a very comic feel to it with flashbacks and floating graphics. It worked well. I’m not sure there’s a whole lot more I can say. This outcome is surprising as I don’t often rate superhero movies and definitely not DC ones. But, hey, it is what it is.

I published this without writing the whole “in this year” thing, so here goes. The year 1916:

  • Emma Goldman is arrested for lecturing on birth control.
  • The toggle light switch is invented.
  • 4 people die of shark attack along the Jersey Shore.
  • Margaret Sanger opens a birth control clinic.
  • War and shit is happening and that’s pretty fucking depressing.
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Missed Opportunity

These last few weeks have mostly been about me building a sleeping system for my kids. I have no idea if there’ll be pictures on here because it’s their room but I will end up explaining bits and pieces. I have completed four days of work on the system and it will end up being a good five days, the last day is going to be spread out over the next week with odd jobs here and there. Overall I am very pleased with the end product. Sure there are shitty bits but they are mostly not obvious on first inspection so I can live with that. There’s also the balance of time/effort/money with caringness.

I was on the phone recently with Jase and we talked about the flooring I was planning. He told me that he had left a message below some laminate flooring in a house he used to live in. I decided I should do the same. I was going to place a newspaper page under the floor, that would give a date and a rough idea of what was going on in the world at the time and then I could write a note and leave it there.

I spent a few days thinking about the note. Should I say who we are and what we are doing with out lives right now? Should I give my opinions on the world at the moment? I was going to leave a note saying that we had enjoyed living in the house and hope that the next people do also – I don’t think I’ll be lifting the flooring in my time in the house. I decided I wouldn’t write about who we are as I knew it would end up being a rant about what is going on in the world at the moment.

I thought I could write about the newspaper I left under the flooring with some comments on the headlines but that would very easily end up being a rant at the sheer incompetence of the government and world leaders at dealing with the PANDEMIC we are trying to live through. I considered writing about the lying racist we have in charge of the country at the moment but I thought that wouldn’t really bring any cheer to whomever reads the note. I decided I shouldn’t write anything and just leave the newspaper there as a small surprise.

Then, this morning, after I have finished the floor, genius struck. I should have written a note as if it was the start of a bad horror movie. I could have written about how I hope that the new owners enjoy their time in the house but that we were terrified of the movings and happenings in the house and that a number of pets had died strangely. This would have been very funny. But only to me as I know that all that bollocks isn’t real. I don’t think I would have done this as maybe the people who live here would be believers and I would cause them problems. Also, they probably would be able to see what I thought as I’ll probably be dead by then.

Still, it would have been funny.

This is communication 1914 and so in keeping with recent tradition I present some things that happened in the year 1914:

  • Mother’s Day becomes a thing in the US and is promoted by companies seeking to profit.
  • Gavrilo Princip did a thing.
  • The Panama Canal is inaugurated.
  • The last know passenger pigeon died.
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New Levels Of Crazy But I Shouldn’t Be Surprised

Last night I was waiting for the cricket highlights on BBC2 and I got the stream going a little bit before 19:00. This meant that I saw the last five minutes or so of some nature programme [Animal Park] covering koala bears at some sanctuary. I didn’t pay enough attention to know where it was set. The gist of this bit of the programme seemed to be wondering whether any of the female koalas were pregnant or at least feeding a joey in the pouch, let’s go with “with child”. To help figure this out and rather than manhandling the koalas they got someone in who had an infrared camera to remotely measure the body temperature of the bears [not bears]. This person was introduced as an “animal osteopath” and I was suckered in to everything that person said.

I’m going to write this communication “live” in the sense that it will be a diary of the next hour as I have a look at whatever the fuck an animal osteopath is. Firstly, let me tell you that human osteopathy is mostly bollocks and doesn’t do anything. I have looked into this along with reading many books concerning osteopathy. I wrote a communication about it in 2014 where I explained what osteopathy does and does not do. TLDR – it does very little except remove money from people. Now I’m really curious about animal osteopathy and what that might be so it’s time to get googling and see what stuff comes up. My initial heuristic is that it’s bollocks, but if I am wrong I will say so later on.

Let’s look at what the “animal osteopath” brought to the television programme. They had a IR camera and could measure temperature of the koalas remotely. The first temperature reading was taken from a male [who couldn’t possibly be “with child”] and the temperature was noted. As far as I can tell this has little to do with female koala temperatures and while it seems quite reasonable it really isn’t. Who is to say that male and female koalas have the same body temperatures over the surface of their bodies? Who is to say what the normal range of temperatures of koalas is? Why was this introduced as though it was scientific when it absolutely was not? Oh, it makes good television I suppose but it was not good method.

Next a couple of the female koalas were temperature measured remotely and the “theory” was that if they had a joey in the pouch then maybe the temperature would be higher in that area of the body. This was not even backed in science. They didn’t announce that we “know” that temperatures are higher where joeys are feeding. This was a first and therefore any differences they find might be down to koala physiology rather than anything else. What sort of temperature difference would be enough to convince the show that a koala was pregnant? All of this reeked of “made for TV” rather than any groundings in science. I’ve just looked up how big joeys are and they are initially the size of a jelly bean and therefore any temperature difference wouldn’t be measurable through the skin and fur of the pouch.

So, the entire process covered on television to decide whether the koalas are pregnant was utter theatre. I doubt very much that this is a valid method and it quite clearly wasn’t standard as the presenters were very much explaining this was a new thing. This brings me to the “animal osteopath”. You don’t need to be an osteopath to operate a IR camera. You don’t need to be anyone specially training. You point the thing and take spot measurements. Why an animal osteopath was introduced I don’t know. They could have had Geoff who lives next door and uses his IR camera to spot couples in flagrante in the bushes near his house. This did not require an animal osteopath.

Human osteopathy is bollocks and so let’s see what animal osteopathy is like. I honestly can’t imagine it’s going to be more evidence based. I somewhere suspect that they make shit up like other osteopaths, but let’s see. A quick google search brings me results for general osteopathy but I’m going to see what courses there are to learn animal osteopathy first and then look over the website of a practitioner.

The first animal based advert within Google was for the above people who train osteopaths and are actually linked to the European School Of Osteopathy which is down the road from me. The website seems to offer courses in horse and dog osteopathy and not much else. It’s a well designed website and offers many courses for people who are interested in animal osteopathy. Their courses are accredited by the ESO so I think I’ll have a look at what they say about animals and shit.

The ESO website is mostly about human osteopathy but they mention a little about animal osteopathy and link to the Association Of Animal Osteopaths. This website design looks very much like AOI and so it’s time to investigate who governs who and whether they are independent and also, it’s time to remember that just because there’s a national association it doesn’t mean that it’s regulated or even science. There’s an international association of osteopaths and that’s bollocks for humans. The top two names in the AAO are also the top two names in AOI and so there’s an overlap there of who checks the work for who. One organisation looks as though it checks the work of the other but they are the same people.

I doubt very much that animal osteopathy has any real effect on animals. Wikipeida doesn’t even link to anything about animal osteopathy, you just get linked to the page for normal osteopathy and so the conclusion is that it does very little. We know that the “placebo” effect operates on those humans who have animals treated with alternative medicine [ie not medicine] and I don’t think there’s any real documented scientific evidence to claim that animal osteopathy is a real thing. I suspect that with people appearing on television and being given credence by that appearance this thing will continue and people will pay money to experience a thing that is not real. Oh well.

This is communication 1912 and so here are some things that happened in that year:

  • First presentation of continental drift theory.
  • Airships used in war for the first time, by Italy.
  • Lawrence Oates says “I am just going outside and may be some time”.
  • Vitamins are identified.
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Jungle Cruise

I took a small trip to see Jungle Cruise at the cinema. I could have paid to stream it on the television but I really like going to the cinema. I noted that the tide was very low in the river, all the mud banks were exposed. This was a metaphor for my low expectations of this film, even then, the film disappointed me a bit. I rated the film on IMDB, there’s a communication dealing with the scoring system.

I didn’t hate this film but I also didn’t think it was worth watching by the end of it. I know this is a film based on a theme park ride but maybe people should just stop making those. The premise was ok-ish: a plant to cure all diseases exists somewhere in the Amazon jungles and the protagonist has to find it, for reasons. Stuff happened including loads of supernatural bollocks. But, here are the things I found most annoying:

A lot of the action was filmed close up and without a steady camera and so it all blurred and I couldn’t really tell you what was going on during the action scenes. Maybe I’m getting old but there was a lot of CGI and fast moving cameras which took away from the actual action for me. Although I am prepared to say that I am definitely not the market for this film.

Why is the bad guy a German? In a submarine? Why German? Why not some mega-capitalist? Why German? Have we not accepted that perhaps not all bad people have Germanic roots. I kind of get it with Indiana Jones and the Nazis, because that was when the film was set and they were really bad. But this guy just seemed to be some low level German royal who wanted the plant-thing. Maybe I need to re-evaluate my approach to whoever the bad guys are.

NOTHING ELSE MATTERS by Metallica was the music that opened this film and also came along for a bit of easy rock half way through. Fuck this song. It is shit. What is happening in the world?

{SPOILER FOLLOWS} Why did the protagonist, who is motivated by saving the sick of the world give the only flower to a dead man she had fallen in love with? Where was her sacrifice for the better good? What an utterly selfish bullshit thing to do. Fuck this move.

I didn’t really enjoy this film. I was curious to see what the ending was going to be, and, of course, it was completely happy. Except for the German, obviously.

What happened in the year 1910 given that this is communication number 1910?

  • Slavery made illegal in China.
  • The Earth passes through the tail of Halley’s comet.
  • A boxing match causes race riots across USA.
  • 40,000 die in China of a pneumatic plague.
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Not Sure When I’ll Stop

I’ve been playing around with a few things in X-Plane. I’ve tried direct flight routes using the in-flight computer along with saving flights and then recording the replays from “interesting” angles. My round the world trip started at RAF Valley, I’ll try and find a date if I can. Originally I was going to fly the coastline of Great Britain or maybe even the UK but I ended up turning right at Jersey and have been heading around the coast of Europe and then Africa. I’m currently in Namibia but struggling to find airstrips along the coast so I’m inland for a little while.

I’m trying to tweet each journey with a screenshot just for posterity. My hashtag isn’t unique and so when I try to look back I’m going to get photographs of lots of people who are going around the world for real. I guess one aim of this is to see other places and see what the world looks like. Even if this is virtual at the moment maybe one day I’ll find somewhere cool to live when I retire!

Here’s a video of me landing somewhere. I recorded the flight and then managed to replay it while moving the camera around [not a great landing]:

This next video is me flying from Ruacana to Ondangwa in Namibia. I think I start the flight halfway through and then go through different views so you can see the sort of thing I look at while flying [another not great landing]:

This is communication number 1908 and so here are a few things that happened in that year [AD]:

  • An opera house fire in Pennsylvania kills 170.
  • The UK acquired the rights to the first major oil discovery in the middle east.
  • The model T is launched by Ford – who by the way was a fucking massive anti-Semite.
  • THE TUNGUSKA EVENT
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Maybe, Maybe Not

As part of this summer I went to the Imperial War Museum in Duxford. It’s a great place and I’ve been there loads in the past. This time was to talk bollocks with an old friend AB. We wandered around and shared stories along with catching up with what’s been going on for the last two years. In the American hangar we saw a B25 Mitchell which had apparently once been the gate guardian at a US Base in Germany. This meant some soldiers would sign the plane by scratching their name into the skin of the aircraft.

Elvish History
Elvish History

If you look carefully you can see that the name in the middle is Elvis. This is plausible as he spent time in the US Army and was in Germany. The fact that he spelt his last name wrong shouldn’t get in the way of a good story.

Maybe Not
Maybe Not

You might have to look at the original pictures, click on them, to be able to see the details!

This is number 1905 and so continuing a recent feature I give you some things that happened in that year [common era]:

  • A boiler explosion in the Grover Shoe Factory kills 58.
  • Einstein submits his photoelectric effect paper.
  • The French pass a law concerning the separation of church and state.
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Low Level Creek

Earlier today I had a lovely walk around the creeks of Faversham. The walk started in the centre of Faversham near the Guildhall building and then followed the Saxon Shore way around Ham Marshes. It’s a lovely part of the countryside and nice and quiet, just the wind whistling through the masts of the boats.

Faversham Creeks
Faversham Creeks

The tide was quite low and there was little water in the creeks. The first part of the walk was along Faversham Creek and then the return was along Oare Creek. There were a lot of newer houses along the shore way and I’m concerned that in fifty years or so they’ll be under water. I’m not convinced at all that humans are going to solve the climate change crisis. I think we are already within the realms of a positive feedback loop.

Faversham Creeks
Faversham Creeks

When I first published this communication I completely forgot about the new “this year in communication number” feature I had been doing and so this is to correct that:

In the year 1903 ACE the following happened:

  • A fire on the Paris metro at Couronnes kills 84.
  • The Iroquois Theatre fire kills 600.
  • Henry Ford founds the Ford motor Company. Henry Ford is a raging anti-Semite.
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Old

After a long day of building stuff I had booked to go to the cinema to make sure that I had a definite end in sight. I didn’t want to be working into the evening always trying to do “one more thing”. As it is the progress is good and I got to where I wanted to be. Still plenty to do though. The only film I could be bothered to go and watch was Old by Michael Night Shyamalan. I’ve looked at what’s on later today and can’t see anything other than a Purge film – which I couldn’t care about – although maybe I should check out a different cinema and see what they’ve got. Watch this space to see if I write another review.

The tide was low this time as I approached the car park. I could see the edge of the mud banks so I’m not sure how much lower it can get, it’s been quite a while since I regularly went this way. When I saw F9 plenty of people were wearing masks but this time there were a lot who were not. It’s very clear that the government [BJ] wants to shed the responsibility and pass it on to individuals [a classic right wing manoeuvre] but in the broadest sense people are stupid. We rules and laws in place to ensure that people don’t make their own choices on many things. If we didn’t have speed limits there would be many many more deaths on the roads than we face now. After the film I thought about what rating to give it and they are explained here.

What did I think of the film? I hated some of the acting and I hated some of the cinemaphotography. I guess M K was heading for a style but it is one I didn’t enjoy. Overall the film was kinda OK but really I just hung around as I wanted to know what the resolution was going to be. I’m not going to give that away here as that wouldn’t be fair but I was hoping for an explanation of why the beach existed rather than what use it has been put to. I guess I can’t have everything.

Oh, there were too many codas. I don’t think any were needed. It could have ended at the point where the people are swimming in fish. That would have been enough for me. It would have meant there were loads of questions that were unanswered but I think it would have made a better film overall. Please remember that I am not a film maker and so I know nothing about these things.

This is communication 1901 and so in line with recent practice I mention below some aspects of the year 1901 – and yes, I am aware that for a lot of people this isn’t even the correct calendar to use but it’s the most common.

  • The UK and Germany agree on how to carve up some of Africa.
  • Boer concentration camps run by the UK are reported to be cruel and have a high mortality rate.
  • Alabama requires voters to have passed a literacy test – and yet modern day republicans are outlawing critical race theory.
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24855 Miles

This distance is 40,000km. I think that’s why it was chosen by Polyphony to be the last achievement for distance in Gran Turismo Sport. I completed this yesterday after competing in some online races around Interlagos and then twatting the 787B around Special Stage X for four laps which was remarkably boring. I guess I should try and get the other achievements completed but I can’t be bothered to take that many photographs within the game or create that many liveries, I’ll look later and see how many that entails, if it’s one hundred then I guess I could manage it but any more will be met with a resounding “fuck that shit”.

Final [not online] GT Sport Achievement
Final [not online] GT Sport Achievement

It’s fitting that this is communication 1900 and it’s about Gran Turismo, a game I have played since its initial release back in the last millennium. It is a game I have enjoyed and still do. I am, however, concerned that the next level of controller will be produced by Fanatec and having looked at their equipment I am shocked at how expensive it is!!

Here’re some of the vaguely interesting things that happened in the year 1900:

  • Miners in Austria go on strike looking for better working conditions [amazing we still have issues with working conditions].
  • The legal workday in France is limited to just 11 hours – for women and children.
  • The Italian King is assassinated.
  • Max Planck discovers the law of black-body radiation.
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Fast & Furious 9

I went to the cinema. I went to the Cineworld cinema in Rochester. I went to the cinema to see Fast & Furious 9 [fucking 9 of them! Can you believe that?]. While driving the approach to the cinema I noticed that the tide was high, the water was lapping around the base of the grasses on the mudbank so it was almost as high as can be. I wrote about why I was seeing this film in this communication. After watching this film I considered how to rate it using my rating system discussed here. Then I tweeted the result because that is what I do.

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I guess I ought to explain my rating of 2/10. The system means that this rating is used when I walk out of a film or gave up watching or just hated it. I’m not sure I hated it and I didn’t walk out but I didn’t want to give this film a massive 4 stars as that would’ve been over-rating it so my excuse for the two stars is that I fell asleep and so this film was so terrible that it couldn’t keep me awake. Not that missing a few minutes in the middle of this film mattered really, there wasn’t any sensible plot as far as I could tell.

This film is what you expect it to be. Plenty of fighting with hands, guns and vehicles. Ridiculous stunts. Over the top sequences and general bollocks. It’s a Fast and Furious film. It’s going to be terrible. I could explain everything that was wrong with this film from the plot to the physics but there are two reasons I don’t want to:

a) there was so much wrong I don’t have the time or inclination to do it.
b) this film doesn’t deserve those words to be written about it.

My experience was one of being too warm, a short period of sleep, feeling cold, losing my facemask, general horror at the physics in the film and laughter at how pathetic some of the scenes were. Does Tbilisi have that much space or canyons close to it?

This is communication number 1899 and so here’s some information about what happened in that time period:

  • Marconi transmits a signal across the Channel.
  • The paperclip is patented.
  • Zeppelin builds the first successful airship.
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I Know It’ll Be Terrible

I’ve booked a ticket to go and see the latest Fast and Furious film. This could be a massive mistake because when I went to the last one I walked out it was shockingly bad. This time I go knowing that it will definitely be utter shit. There are a few reasons I am going to spend a couple of hours in the dark:

  • I like going to the cinema.
  • This film is in screen 8 which is the comfy one.
  • I’m going to listen to God Awful Movies after I’ve watched this.

The point of going to watch this film isn’t the actual film experience it’s the experience of listening to a podcast that rips it to shit afterwards. I have listened to every episode of God Awful Movies and I even send them money using Patreon. I pay the God Awful guys because they entertain me each week and I am happy to reward them for that. Noah, Heath and Eli make me laugh and have helped get me through some iffy times in my life. It’s a couple of hours each week where I can concentrate on something so shitty that these guys have made over 300 episodes where they explain, and take the piss out of, terrible religious films. F9 is a Patreon bonus episode. So, I’m going to see the film. So that I can understand what they are talking about. My time in the cinema will be rewarded when I listen to the podcast after.

I’ve also been watching Boondock Saints II because the GAM guys are reviewing it in a standard episode. I’ve watched Boondock Saints as a lot of the music I like references it and uses quotations from the movie. It is not a good movie.

What follows is something I tried doing before but didn’t follow it through. This is communication 1897 and so here are a few things that happened in 1897, quite likely the ones I find curious rather than the best ones:

  • Some fraternities were founded in the USA – by the way, fuck fraternities, fucking awful things.
  • Dracula first published.
  • The Lattimer massacre.
  • The Korean Empire is founded.
  • The Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee is founded, the first LGBT campaigning organisation.
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Isolation – What A Trip

Got pinged to isolate. I had to leave work. I went home. I organise some aspects of my life. I had to do my first online order for groceries in around eighteen years, I’d been running the house to empty ready for a shop at the weekend. Fortunately I still have a number of goods left over from my stock of Brexit rations. This communication is part diary, part thoughts, part descent into madness. I had plans for the next few days, I was going to go to the cinema, go shopping and sort out a few things around the house. I guess I can still sort those things out. Let’s see what happens. I think the verb tenses used in the following will mess with your head. Some is future tense, because I wrote things in the morning and some is past tense because I said what I did!

Day 1 – last day of work. I’ve organised all the things I can and I wait for the start of the summer holiday. On this day I ended up doing some exercise, an hour on the rower, watched Guns Akimbo and finished two TV series which I will write about separately. I also did some Minecraft but somewhat aimlessly.

Day 2 – first day of the summer holiday. Current plans are to exercise. Watch TV and play some games, maybe a new one. I played X-Plane, Minecraft and Life Is Strange. The food delivery came a few hours early so that was good. I weedkilled some weeds and thought about home improvement works I am planning. I read up on the book I am reading to figure out wtf is going on and the wikipedia page helped a lot.

Day 3 – Some exercise and chilling are planned. Looking back I’m not entirely sure what I did. I watched Page Eight on Netflix. I ordered some stuff from Amazon. Had a BBQ and I’m not really a fan of eating outdoors so ate indoors. I got fed up with the book I was reading and so finished a chapter and moved on to Red Shirts by Scalzi.

Day 4 – I rowed a little bit. I read a little bit. I did some thinking about the bedroom project [not a sex thing] and upgraded aspects of a laptop.

Day 5 – Rowing. Minecraft. Storm watching. Localised floods. Reading. Cleaned the U-Bends in the kitchen. Responded to a local planning survey. Watched Blue Origin launch and land.

Day 6 – Cheat for food and exercise. Started watching The Right Stuff. Started watching Salting the Battlefield. Played Minecraft with the aim of getting a wither skull or something so I can spawn the wither and then kill it and get a beacon. Got a wither skull but died a few times doing it. Lost some decent netherite tools but overall, quite pleased. Had the boiler fixed – maybe, let’s see how that goes.

Day 7 – Exercised. Tidied bedroom. Finished watching Salting The Battlefield. Watched some Olympic softball. Read some of my book. Played Minecraft.

Day 8 – Played Gran Turismo, Minecraft. Emptied a bedroom ready for customisation project. Started watching Star Trek Enterprise, got bored. Started watching Manifest, got bored. Bought what I thought was Boondock Saints II on Amazon, paid £5 but it was just a ten minute interview – cheeky bastards – got a refund from Amazon for that. Downloaded Saints II and started watching it. Customised the Magic Mirror to have an animated rainfall map.

Current Magic Mirror Configuration

And that is isolation completed. I am now free to leave the house and head out to the big wide world. But, I don’t really trust anyone else so I will be wearing a mask when I’m inside. I will avoid crowded places and I will stay away from other people. I’ve got plenty of my summer holiday left to get things done, although if I’m honest there won’t be much different from the stuff listed in here.

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Withdrawal Method

I’ve decided to withdraw from the news and views of what’s happening around the world. I see nothing but conniving ignorant cunts from the UK government and it distresses me a fair bit. You know what it’s like: you’ve got ten minutes here or there and so you have a little look through some Twitter Feeds, get reasonably annoyed at what you see and vow to leave it alone for a while. Yesterday I watched the BBC news at 1300 for a little while and the sheer arse-about-faceness of the tory minister brought on to defend the PM was incredible. He didn’t answer the question, which I guess is why he’s a minister and I’m not. It would be nice if this bunch of tory pricks could actually be honest and show sympathy. But we know that tories are literally that because they can’t empathise.

Today I’ll be trying to avoid the news, Twitter and Reddit. I’ve uninstalled Reddit from my phone, again. I had loaded it as a little summertime time waster but the politics is just annoying. I quite like seeing the cool stuff but I’ll survive without it. I think it’s time to create some proper goals in Minecraft and start working towards them. Today’s job is to find a mob spawner to XP up my mending enchanted tools. I also want to learn about potions for when I go to the End. Fuck this world and it’s short-sighted politicians. Time to enter to the world of games.

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Omboue Hospital

As part of my round the world trip in X-Plane I landed at Omboue Hospital in Gabon. It’s such a quiet airfield that X-Plane has nothing there. Not sure where my next stop will be, I’m considering flying over the top of the DRC as, you know, it’s the DRC and not a healthy place.

Omboue Hospital
Omboue Hospital
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A Mess At The Moment

This is my current base in this latest world. I’ve written about things recently but this is a whole new era of my Minecraft skills. I have a simple base at the moment, I have a villager breeding area as I try to get the mending enchantment and I have a kelp XP farm. Things are going OK at the moment. The island in the bottom is mostly reclaimed and so I’ll be calling it New Holland.

I’ve got railways joining these places over the sea. This land is in a new chunk since the caves and cliffs update part one and therefore there are geodes and glowing squid all over the place. I’m not sure how to make a proper base yet, but part of me wants to build up a massive volcano and go completely Bond-villain.

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Glideslope, PFD

My current flight sim plans are wandering around the Earth from airport to airport and just enjoying the views. I’m currently heading down the west coast of Africa and have recently started recording my journey on Twitter. I don’t use Twitter a huge amount at the moment because ultimately no-one cares what I think and I have friends whom I can moan to about things.

Having just clicked on the hashtag I can see that there are many people using the same hashtag but in reality. They are travelling around the world. Well, given the current pandemic, I am not. Also, I don’t have the money and I have other responsibilities at the moment so I don’t think I can. My next trip is to Scotland in February.

X-Plane Control Panel - iOS
X-Plane Control Panel – iOS

This is a screen capture of the X-Plane Control Panel on my iPhone. It looks at the information in X-Plane on the PC and gives me information about my flight. The bottom display is my glideslope approach to an airport, the middle display is a kind of map with weather display and the top is my PFD. I’m quite impressed with the extra information I get and I’ve been using the glideslope when my approach is through clouds. None of those landings have been successful though and I generally fly those routes again or it seems like I’m cheating. One thing that does happen though is once the iPhone is connected it changes the weather from real-world to whatever the settings are on the phone and that’s a frustration, I will look into this to see if I can correct it.

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Just The Way I Like It

This is the system I use to play on the flight simulator. I really enjoy my time flying around the world virtually and trying to split the journey up into twenty minute flights.

X-Plane Set Up
X-Plane Set Up

The stuff I have here is a HOTAS system from Logitech, two PC screens, keyboard and mouse from Razer along with two external displays. The Samsung tablet runs some software giving me a PFD and the information involved there. My phone runs some software which is similar to the tablet PFD but also includes glideslope information and forward terrain. In the picture below you can see my chair, which I absolutely love. It’s a lovely chair.

My Favourite Chair
My Favourite Chair

It was quite hard to get the camera to take a reasonable photograph of the system because I have a polarising filter on the lens and as the displays are also polarised, but in different directions, it means that I couldn’t really get the best direction of the polarisation. But I did ok. Here is what it looks like at its worst.

Polarised Displays
Polarised Displays
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