This was an omission I had to correct. So, I did. I went and built a monolith at the Beach House but it looked too small. 1 x 4 x 9 didn’t really work that well so I doubled it. You have to keep the correct ratios and here it is:
Monolith and Portal
It’s a 2 x 8 x 18 which is a lot of obsidian that I had to make down in one of my mines. I have perfected my lava quenching techniques though! I think it looks good just floating in the air and although I touched it while building the thing I won’t be going near it, just in case.
TMA 2, Portal and the Beach House
This view has all the important bits of this end of the world. My beach house, the portal and the monolith. There’s also the remains of a tower showing top centre which was to indicate the way back – I’ve since got rid of most of it!
Monolith and Portal
I’m currently working on a *secret project* and there will be another video released soon showing the Empire. I’m not expanding the area but I’m tidying up some of the impact of building in the meadow area. Ultimately I would like to continue the *secret project* to the rest of the Empire but I think that would be too tedious. I have other things I want to do, like learn redstone and also get a shulker box and beacon.
While out for a walk yesterday this monster of a beetle was seen and then photographed.
Stag Beetle
The body and horns must’ve been 5cm in total. It was the first time I had seen anything like this and once I was home I looked it up. It was a stag beetle. It’d be good to see another one in the wild one day. Also while walking across the middle of the field I noticed a few house martins eating insects over flying over the field. It was a lovely sight and something I’ve not seen for a long time. I can remember martins and swallows from my childhood but I don’t recall any since then. Maybe I just wasn’t looking.
It’s been a little while since I wrote on here but in all honesty I’ve been struggling to find things to write about. You see, nothing’s happening. We are in this lockdown and work is odd at the moment. I have been in to work three times since 17 March. Those three times were supervising and not doing my real job but at least it was somewhere else to be. I’m in a couple of times over the next week and that might be more interesting. Working at home places really interesting pressures and thoughts on you. I keep trying to manage engagement with the time that I have. I’ve also spent time in a better world, my Minecraft world. Even though there are creepers and zombies and witches and I died in that world a few days ago, it’s a far more enjoyable place than the real world at the moment.
Each day I try and have two races on Gran Turismo. Sometimes I’m not in the mood but mostly I am. It’s a nice half hour distraction from the world and it can be really enjoyable. The issues with racing online still exist and the idea that you will lose because someone else is entirely incompetent is annoying but normally it’s worth it. Of the current daily races I have enjoyed racing around the Mount Panorama circuit at Bathurst. I’ll probably write a little about my favourite cars sometime soon as I noticed I’d completed over 3000miles in my Mazda! That’s more than some people drive in the real world in a year.
Anyway, in a race yesterday I started in second position. My time of around 2’07” is pretty good but the person on pole had 2’05” and I’ve no idea how they got that. I’m not convinced I’ve really hooked together a complete decent lap but to lose a further two seconds from my time would be hard work. Also, I suspect there are people out there even faster. It looks as though GT matches you with people of a similar ability and time so I don’t know what the fastest time in the world is. Mind you, I guess there are people playing a lot more than me. I know I’ve been playing from 1997 ish but to get loads better at these circuits you just need to get practising.
For whatever reason at the start of the race yesterday the person in pole didn’t accelerate at the start and I zoomed past them. I was in the lead from the first corner and didn’t look back. Well, I did, I used my mirrors to see what was behind me but you know what I mean. The thing about being in the lead is that there’s a lot more to lose if you stack it going into a corner so it does make me more hesitant and cautious on corner entrances and exits. This can cost time and so I have to monitor the gap to the car behind. For this race it was around 1.8 seconds for the whole race and only moved by a few tenths. I sometimes get an adrenaline build up on the last lap as I get excited about winning. This time I calmed that and kept telling myself to keep a clean lap and remember where I tend to oversteer on the exit of corners when I put the power down early. Mount Panorama is a glorious circuit and very tricky, the section at the top of the mountain is horrible and fantastic at the same time.
Below is a screen video clip of the final positions along with my “win” celebrations and the delivery of my daily workout car. If you complete 26.6 miles in a day you get a free car. Most of these I don’t use. There are around 500 cars in the garage and I’m not fussed by them.
I’m pretty sure this was my first ever fastest lap in a race. I’m very happy with that. I don’t know what lap times other people got but it doesn’t matter. I was out in front with a clear road and that does make it a lot easier. You don’t have to judge what other people are going to do and brake slightly early because of the concertina effect. You can pretty much put down qualifying laps, just while hoping that you don’t get nudged or whacked by someone forgetting to break, or by someone who is just an asshole.
I am quite convinced that the physics of the car is different in the race compared to qualifying and I’m not sure why. I get a little more understeer during races and I suspect, but do not know, that it’s due to the air modelling the game does. Driving a car through mostly still air is very different to driving through disturbed air and I have noticed a very minor difference in steering and braking while racing in the pack with other cars around. There is a definite effect and the car doesn’t behave as it does on qualifying. It’s something I think I need to investigate.
I’ve been building my Minecraft empire bit by bit. The last few days have had me experimenting with redstone and what that can do. I’m now upgrading different bases that I “own” to have automatic doors and security systems. Once I get quite good at the basics I’ll try to make bigger and better things. I have an area near my beach house where I practice certain builds and I have even gone to sleep realising I could have made things much simpler but, hey ho.
Here’s a video of the journey from one end of my empire to the other. You will move from my “secret” mountain base to the beach house. It’s changed a little since I made this video as I’m trying to add more stations to the system but this still represents most of “my” land.
Once I’ve got the railway system working well I’ll try and post another video to show what I’ve done.
Out walking the other day I spotted a lovely looking flower and so I used Google Lens to see what it was. To use Google Lens have the phone camera pointing at something in the Google App. Google will then do it’s best to figure out what you are looking at. It could be a bar code and Google tell you what the product is or it could be a leaf or flower. It’s how I found out what the plants growing in my garden were.
Don’t Use Them Up
When I got Google to tell me what this flower was it said Opium Poppy. I was rather startled and so did a proper search back at home and this is one variety of opium poppy. Now, whether it has any opium in the eventual seeds I do not know. I’m curious but not that curious. It amuses me a lot to know that opium is growing near my house.
Contrast
Last night the sky was quite dramatic with large clouds and the sun at a low angle making the dark portion of the cloud on the right hand side. It looked a lot better than this picture shows.
The last few times I’ve been to the Amazon homepage there’s been an image by the Launchpad section that intrigued me as I didn’t know what the object was and it looked as though it was cool tech. I was initially quite excited when the launchpad started because it seemed a good thing – plenty of tech solutions to mundane problems – but now it just seems to be an area of the store for products which don’t really do anything different to the items elsewhere. The early excitement left me pretty quickly as the Launchpad filled with the mundane.
What Is It?
Clicking on this image just took me to the Launchpad homepage which I then browsed but found nothing interesting. Maybe that is the purpose of the image. Getting people like me to browse new areas of the website so that I end up buying something. It’s been about a week of seeing this image and so I have finally given a little more effort into browsing to see what it is.
It turns out this thing is a sleep aid device. I will try and avoid using brand names but I will link to the product website once. According to the Amazon information this device has a metronome light that will help you fall asleep naturally 2.5 times faster than normal [average]. Apparently lots of people use it. Other information on the product description has science words with a photograph of a doctor and a description that you align your breathing with the light emitted and this will bring your body into a natural sleep condition. My interest was piqued. My default mode is scepticism and while I’m not dismissing their claims I am going to cover some of the red flags. I hope that towards the end of this article I will find evidence that the product works well.
Problematic Claims
Listing the claims made on their website with comment.
76% positive reviews – those who thought this product worked bothered to let the company know that this product worked in their opinion.
2.5 x faster – people claim that the time taken to fall asleep has dropped by 61%. People are terrible judges at what really happens. That’s why we have developed the scientific method. I will look for a published peer reviewed paper to see if the claims can be backed up.
100 days money back guarantee – This, may at first, seem like an honest option for a company to offer. If this doesn’t work then send it back. In reality this is using a human memory trick to appear honest but people forget that they bought something or have the chance to send it back. This is common among devices that don’t work. How often have you bought a TV and Sony say, hey if you don’t like it return it after three months and we’ll refund you.
Testimonials – user testimonials are a problem, especially for medical / health devices. People don’t know what works. We need a scientific method to investigate these things. Just think how many people you know who use acupuncture / chiropractic / osteopathy when all the science evidence is none of them work. User testimonials are a problem.
Already in excess of 500,000 users – this is an appeal to popularity. If we’ve sold this many then it must work. This is not true. If you remember Mr Blobby was the Christmas number one a while ago and that song was utter shit.
Scary Graphic
This is an amazing graphic. Look at all the details. Sleeping pills cause death. Yoga costs money. Therapy is good but expensive. This product is the best, natural and cheap, doesn’t take much time and green which is definitely the best. Also, the number of stars increases to the best product which is the breathing light. This is amazing. Such balls to design this.
The whole front page of their website is full of lovely modern graphics with plenty of advice and explanation. Whether this is true or works is something I will investigate but it’s worth noting that so far nothing I have seen really strikes me as anything other than “all the comments on our website are this works”.
Who Is This For?
The page on the website which covers who can use the device mentions almost everyone. Therefore everyone is free to buy this product with the knowledge that it will help to improve their sleep patterns. The list is:
Chronic insomnia
Night awakenings
Stressful life
Thoughts running through your head
Daily or one-off troubles
Insomnia and pregnancy
Noisy environment
So, as you see. It works for everyone. We all have times when sleeping is difficult. We all have lives that seem stressful. We all struggle at times. In part, that is the human condition. So, this product could help everyone.
Science Stuff
The science page is pretty well written compared to many such sites I have seen. They make claims along the way. At the beginning the company explains that sleep deprivation can be caused by autonomic nervous system disorders and there’s a link to a published academic paper. This study was performed on 11 insomniacs, not a great number of people. There was a control group which is a good thing. The outcome of this is that to help insomniacs there should be an aim to reduce emotional arousal along with methods for improving sleep. Nothing about how to do that yet.
The next linked study performed on just 8 people seems to suggest the same thing: “These results support the aetiological hypothesis of physiological hyperarousal underlying primary insomnia.” So far these two studies don’t really say anything about this product. All they say is that being stressed/emotional could lead to insomnia. There are three more studies link on the “why” section of the science page and my favourite is the last one which tries to link acupuncture as a treatment for insomnia: “Our review indicates the necessity for further research in the relationship between the effects of acupuncture on insomnia and autonomic regulation, which might guide better selective use of this treatment modality for insomnia.” What this study doesn’t do is say it works. What the study says is that more study is needed. This is precisely the method used by TCM proponents when they find no link in their results. They just say that more study is needed.
The next few parts on the science page try to link breathing to emotional state, which seems fair. They then take the view that this will help sleep, which initially seems fair. There’s a link to a study which has around 40 participants, which is still pretty low, especially once you split them into different treatment wings. So, they asked people to breath at a rate of six breathes per minute and then recorded they blood pressure after five minutes. Would you believe it? After five minutes of being told to relax the participants were relaxed. Wow! How this links to a stressful life I’m not sure yet. All we’ve established is that slowing your breathing can help you feel relaxed. We’ve also established with some poor quality studies that being relaxed helps you sleep.
Next is a link to a study that says concentration can help you sleep. This study is from 1974. I’m not saying it’s wrong but when the last sleep/concentration study you can find is from nearly fifty years ago then maybe you need some more investigative work. Science has moved on since then and we have corrected a lot of the early work. There are a few more links to different studies through the last few paragraphs and there are some amazing charts but none of this so far has convinced me. The science page concludes:
Dodow tackles one of the main obstacles to achieving a sound sleep. It is easy to use, harmless, non-addictive, affordable at can be used at any time of night. Our goal is to democratize its use and create a solution referenced by physicians.
“Easy to use, harmless, non-addictive, affordable at can be used at any time of night” all these are red flags. These are warnings that it’s possible it doesn’t work. Do you know what sort of things have zero side effects? Things that don’t work. “Affordable” is relative. £50 seems like quite a bit of money to me. But if I was struggling to sleep then I would probably think it’s worth it. Sleep deprivation is a terrible thing. I was suffering from poor sleep last November. This device wouldn’t have helped because my sleep issues were caused by stress. I had to sort out the causes of the stress. This is not easy. A blue light to stare at seems easy.
The People
There are lots of other pages under the heading of “blog” which gives plenty of reasons why certain types of people should buy this product. I’m not going through all of them. But I did see the above graphic which tells us about the people who started this company. Greg is, apparently, rational and studied at Stamford. Nice appeal to authority of education there. Gui is into mystic shit and worked for a massive company and so must be ok. Pierre found that he had trouble sleeping because he was thinking too much, he’s emotionally invested in such a cure for sleep. Alex cured his insomnia with yoga, not this system. Look how “respectable” they appear – young, white, intelligent. There is a problem with society when you look at these people and think “oh, they must know what they are doing”.
The Doctor
Dr. David O’Hare has his picture on the science page and is apparently a specialist in cardiac coherence. Whether this doctor has any financial connections to this company I do not know. I tried to Google this person. There were only responses on the French Wikipedia page about cardiac coherence and so I looked at that. My French isn’t great and so thanks to a live web-page Google translate I was able to read this section. The very first paragraph on this web-page explains that this heart coherence technique is founded on poor studies and is considered pseudoscience. This means there isn’t really any good scientific evidence to back the claims that are made.
the effectiveness of cardiac coherence is not recognized: AFIS, which fights against scientific disinformation, considers it as a pseudo-science among others and denounces its promotion
So, it took a little digging. But we eventually got to the point where we know that the doctor recommending this product on their page promotes a modality considered pseudoscience and shouldn’t be promoted. There isn’t evidence to suggest his area of study is true. When your product is backed by someone who makes money from something that doesn’t work you have to question the validity of all the claims on the website and about the product.
My Conclusion
In this communication I have investigated what looked like a pretty cool product for sale on Amazon launchpad. I wasn’t sure what it was at first but it looked cool, although a dust trap. This device is meant to help you sleep and all the claims it makes are plausible. They have lots of science words and diagrams and seem to be endorsed by a doctor. The content of their claims had red flags, the sort of thing that is common with lots of products that don’t really work. So, I investigated this product. I looked at the red flags and the information on their website. I have concluded that it is unlikely that this device does what it claims. While it seems plausible all the evidence go to show that it is unlikely to do what it says. If I have problems sleeping in the future I won’t be heading to buy this device I will use one of the more proven methods for aiding sleep. These are harder and take more time but will have longer last real effects.
A side discussion would be whether Amazon should stock this product or have it on their website. My initial thought would be that they should not. A company should promote things which do not work. A quick search for homoeopathy on the site provides many results and homoeopathy is the most ridiculous of all bullshit non-medical treatments. Currently Amazon is a platform for people to sell their stuff. It’s almost like eBay in some cases and selling items with vague claims isn’t illegal. I mean there are loads of osteopathic practices around where I live. So, morally, I think Amazon should not have these products. But it is up to them I guess. It’s also impossible to police if they maintain their current model. Much like Twitter and Facebook could not possibly moderate every comment or post I reckon Amazon couldn’t do that without massively impacting their business model. Maybe that is where the problem lies ultimately, societies reliance on capitalism. I’ll leave that for another day.
There’s plenty of discussion around at the moment about statues of mostly dead famous people who were wealthy. They also had the unfortunate problem of being slave owners or traders or racists etc. This is causing a lot of discussion across the country and in my mind it’s one of those binary things that means subtlety doesn’t really come into it. A statue can either be in place or it can not. Those are your choices. So, it’s quite tricky to decide what is right for us to do. There is no room for nuance in these matters where the outcome is either yes or no.
A statue on display or the naming of a building or football team or military base venerates that thing. Let’s take the Colston statue which was torn down in Bristol. Colston made a load of money and was very influential in the Bristol area and also a MP. He made this money, or a large part of it, from the slave trade. The slave trade was wrong and many countries current wealth relies on the fact that slaves were used as part of its history. So, in my view, this is an easy one. Remove the statue from public veneration in the city. I will explain later what I would like to see done with it.
That was the easy one. Let’s think about this using someone less controversial and who many people won’t have heard of. Then we can thought experiment around with it to see where we go. So, in Kirriemuir there is a statue of the early AC/DC singer Bon Scott. Now, I adore the songs of AC/DC and I love the lyrics that Bon wrote. I remember watching the video “Let There Be Rock” and I cried at the end when it came up with the title “For Bon . . “. He was an influential singer and songwriter and so this is easy. It is currently morally right for that statue to be in the town where he was born. Was Bon Scott an angel? Most likely not. Did he piss off a few people in his life? I expect so. Is there any credible evidence that he did bad things? Not that I’m aware.
Now Bon Scott had a lot of sex. As far as we all know it was consensual. So, what if evidence arose that he had raped someone? I think that would be enough evidence for a public discussion about whether the statue should remain. I think it should be removed. Will people still listen to his music? Quite likely. It is a sad world currently where the level of rape and sexual assault is underestimated and under reported because it’s not seen as “serious”. The #metoo movement should have opened our eyes, I fear it did not, to the fact that almost EVERY woman has had some experience of sexual assault and it’s seen as “not a problem”. This attitude even affects the way I write this, as I’ve re-drafted it a few times because it was almost natural to minimise the effects of rape and its consequences because of its portrayal and current standing in society. I have corrected this thought process with the words I changed and feel ashamed of my first draft as I know three women who have been raped. This minimising societal reaction to female sexual assault needs to change.
Let’s ramp up the level a little bit. Let’s say that Bon Scott fucked a child. Now, by definition, this is non-consensual and also this offence is accepted as fundamentally wrong by all. In this case I think the public mood would be very different and there would be immediate public argument for the removal of the statue. It’s is not a good sign in society when the age difference of the victim plays such a large role in the outcome of public mood. There is still much work to be done for crimes to be recognised and taken seriously.
All I did in that thought experiment was to have a singer of a band that most people don’t listen to have a dubious past. Our emotional attachment to the statue is minimal and we can clearly see how wrong-doing would change our perception of the necessity to have the statue on public display in a town or city. There is some argument to be made about whether we celebrate the art of a person but not that person and I struggle with this a bit but then I think the actual answer is easy. We remove that art. So we listen to the songs of Gary Glitter anymore? Do we listen to the songs of the LostProphets anymore? No. It’s easy isn’t it.
If you feel the need to defend people because of “what they did for our country” then maybe you need to look at the history of the country and re-evaluate your conceptions about the righteousness of that country. Maybe the country was built on the pain and suffering of millions and maybe that country needs to do something very serious to compensate for that. Defending these statues also means that you possibly need to look into your own thoughts and why you feel uncomfortable facing up to the horrors of your country. What is it that you are defending? What is it that you align with so strongly that you think a slave trader should be on prominent display in a city built on the slave trade and the human suffering that caused. Maybe you need to think a little bit about your white European elitism and privilege.
So, there are now calls for statues of Baden-Powell [homophobe and racist] and Churchill [eugenicist] to be removed. I’d even support the removal of any statues of Roald Dahl [anti semite]. I don’t have a problem with these being removed. It’s like the easiest question ever. Should we venerate people who had “troublesome” thoughts? No. Easy. It’s done. Just think back to the Bon Scott thought experiment. I personally think that our collective veneration for Churchill is strange. Yes, he led the country through the second world war, but was he just the man who happened to be the leader at that time?
It turns out that people are complicated and any form of veneration leads to complex thoughts and problems. Does owning a book by Roald Dahl make you an antisemite? No. Does it mean that you endorse his views? No. Are you allowed to enjoy his stories? I guess so, if you wish. Should the nation have a statue to him on public display for the nation and world to see? No. The nation would endorsing his views.
To make things better this country needs to recognise the pain in the past and make reparations for that. This country needs to do that, I suspect it will not, to make things right. A verbal apology doesn’t really cut it does it? Remember gay mathematician Alan Turing who helped win the second world war. He died after being hounded and sentenced to chemical castration because of homophobic laws. The government “apologised” in 2009. Turing died in 1954. What does the apology do? It’s just words. People are still hounded in society because they seem “different”. To make an apology work you have to be willing to change your behaviour. If you want to apologise for things in the past then we need to fully accept the past and be ashamed we need to change our society for the better and accept all people for who they are while denouncing behaviours that aren’t nice. I’m not sure that shame is a natural part of most Britons I know.
What to do with those statues? We keep them. In a national hall of shame and sorrow. We put these racists, homophobes, slavers, murderers and elitist figures into a large display area. Then, next to each figure we need to have displays showing why their statues were made in the first place. We need to list the “good” they did. Then next to that there needs to be an explanation of all the bad they did and things we now disagree with. Along with that there needs to be a list of all the work the country has done to right those wrongs. What money has been paid. What projects have been produced and how this country admits to its past along with what has and is doing to make sure the future is fairer to all.
Some of you might cry that “everyone was like that at the time”. We, no they weren’t. There were people who weren’t homophobic, there were people who weren’t antisemites, there were people who weren’t slave traders, there were people who weren’t responsible for the killing of thousands, there were people who weren’t sexists. There were people who argued against those things. Those are the people we should venerate.
Lockdown has led me to have the chance to learn how to play Minecraft. I know it’s not that hard, but I’ve found it interesting and fun. I’ve also had the chance to explore parts of the world that I can’t do in real life. I had started thinking that I would write today about systemic racism and privilege in our modern society but I’m not going to, yet. I think there’s been enough said over the last while and if you read these communications you will see what side I’m on. What I will say is that if you deny systemic racism then you either a purposely not reading or learning anything about our modern society or you are racist. I think my favourite thing I’ve seen written recently was – We hate Trump because he is racist, you hate Obama because you are racist – and don’t you go thinking this is just an American problem, it is rife in this little island over here too.
Minecraft World
This is how much of the current world I have explored. It is approximately 5km across its furthest points. The base is somewhere in the middle of all that! This is the second Minecraft world I have generated, the first had me on an island in an ocean and I spent quite a while on that world but I have to say that being spawned in the woods and on a land of large area is much easier. It’s much easier to find resources. I find that I tend to separate my playing sessions into three main types.
Building Structures
Off Adventuring
Mining for Materials
The loop top right is one that I spent a few “days” exploring. When exploring I always have a bed, food and compass in my inventory. The bed is to be able to skip the night so that I encounter as few monsters as possible. Food is a requirement and then the compass I use to find my way back to the world spawn point. My main base is close to the world spawn point and I think that’s important along with a compass. I haven’t yet figured out how to use the Minecraft maps properly I need to do some reading on them. Each session I play is between one and two hours. I find the mining good fun and I think I try to see too much logic in the placement of blocks but also need to understand that while it’s random it is also procedurally generated. Building structure is excellent and my plans are slowly getting larger. I haven’t really figured out the aesthetics of it all yet and I need to practise my use of materials cleverly to look good but I’m getting the hang of it slowly.
My Buildings – Minecraft
My main structures are marked with red blotches in the above picture. Starting far left they are:
Beach House
Beach Station
Meadow Station
Main Base
First Harbour
Secret Mountain Base
I found the beach while I was off on a wander and I decided eventually to build a pathway from the main base to it as easy access to the sea is helpful in this game. Once I had a pathway in place with lit towers marking the route I then decided that the “day” it takes to walk was rather annoying and I chose to make a railway from the main base to my beach house. I knew I would have to gather a lot of resources and that I did. I needed plenty of railway and powered rails along with lots of blocks to make the whole line one straight section of railway. I chose to do this as it’s easier to head in a single direction through mountains and over rivers than winding your way, it also requires less material. The resulting railing is just under 1,6 kilometres long.
It’s a long way to the beach
To travel this far in the minecart takes about three real minutes. From main base to the beach house is about five real minutes of travel. At least it gives you time to sort out the inventory and make sure everything is placed neatly. Once the main railway was in place I built stations at each end and I don’t have any screen shots of those at the moment. I then wanted to build two decent looking bridges over two rivers and a future job is to build a nice viaduct where the railway passes over the swamp biome.
My Suspension Railway Bridge
My Standard Railway Bridge
Ill try and get some screen shots of my stations and secret mountain base and put them on here sometime soon. I wanted my stations to be fun and represent the areas they headed to. So the station near the main base is fun colours and looks like a sweet while the station near the beach is green and looks like the forests the line heads towards. I have really done any Redstone constructions yet apart from the railway. I think I will need to start these soon as I would like to have a switch which turns railway points so you can pick your destination in the station and the correct railway line is chosen automatically. While I don’t know if this can be done I am sure I could find a guide if I wanted but I will learn bit by bit.
Because I’m classically on the left of politics I’m going to mention some problems with this game. Is this important? It’s just a game you say. Well, yes this is important because all of this adds to culture and what people think is acceptable. What do the Marvel films teach us? That the world will be saved by gods and masked superheroes with immense damage and that all arguments can be solved through violence. This is partly why I don’t really enjoy these movies, that and they aren’t that good. So, Minecraft. Let’s look at the overall themes. I mine coal to power my cooking and smelting processes. I harvest trees for the wood but at least I can regrow the trees or even plant more than I have destroyed. Animals roam the land and I can use them for my own purposes. I get points for killing them and also for breeding them. If I’m trapped in a village overnight I can kick a villager out of their bed and sleep in it. I can destroy the villagers’ homes with no repercussions, I can steal their food and their possessions with no repercussions. I can kill them with no repercussions. I can take their lands and use their goods for my own purposes.
This game teaches you that there are no repercussions to stealing land, taking food, killing natives, destroying the planet, building whatever you want. I know this game is played a lot by younger children who love it. They love the creativity of it. They love challenging each other and it is a massive online arena with YouTubers careers made on explaining it to the world. But, when you break it down, what does it teach you? If there’s a better metaphor for historical and current European descent white supremacy then I’m not sure I know what it is. Where was this game created? Stockholm. Who owns it now? Microsoft. This world is biased and people claim they can’t see how! There, I managed to end this communication on a depressing note.
One of the drawbacks of this lockdown [and by drawback I mean an entirely trivial thing that doesn’t really matter] is the inability to see new places. In the past I would often go for trips to see what is out there. During my normal summer break I would have travelled the length of this country seeking out new things. I would also have travelled to Germany to spend a lovely weekend watching bands at the M’era Luna festival in Hildesheim. The last three months have been spent at my house or in the local countryside [I am aware of the privilege there and I’ve written in the past about how I feel lucky to live where I do]. While I’m happy enough with my surrounds it is nice to get out and about. I miss seeing new things. I miss growing with experiences. I miss just sitting in a darkened room for two hours while images flicker in front of me.
Because I’ve not been doing anything new I haven’t been using my “big” camera. I’ve had plenty of projects to keep myself busy and the tech in my house just mysteriously keeps improving but I miss trying to get that lovely shot. Trying to frame a picture and get the camera settings correct so that the image “works”. By now I should have had trips to RAF Brize Norton and RAF Wittering, I should have been teaching weapon skills and I would have taken myself to the Lake District to bag some more mountains while camping at a site nestled between them. While the iPhone has been everywhere with me and I’ve taken some photographs with it I’d rather be out there doing proper stuff. I’ll have to think about how to do that. Maybe at the weekend. but, currently
A reasonable length of time ago I started to learn how to teach mathematics the year was 1995/6. During that academic year I received my second placement at a school in Kingston Upon Thames. I was living in Ealing at the time and my first school was The Featherstone High School in Southall and it was a couple of stops away by train. However, to get from Ealing to Kingston was not the easiest of journeys and meant about an hour on public transport. So, I decided to get a motorbike. That teacher training year was a surprise to me for two main reasons:
I discovered that I really loved teaching and decided to stay in that profession. My plans up to then had been to join the RAF as an educational officer.
I bought a motorbike, which I consider instant death traps, and I loved it.
So, I took my motorbike test in 1996 I think. I couldn’t remember the braking distances for different speeds and so one of my my flatmates, Greg, came up with the formula:
Braking distances formula where x is speed in MPH and result is braking distance in feet
Using this formula gives you the braking distance in feet when x is in miles per hour. Effectively it splits into two parts; the x is the thinking distance which is roughly one foot for each mile per hour and the x^2 is essentially the kinetic energy factor. I actually used this formula to work out the answer to the question in my motorbike driving test and got it correct although the tester was somewhat surprised I was using feet rather than metres even though both were acceptable in those days.
This distance is an estimate and cars nowadays will be able to stop in much shorter distances. The more you pay for your car the shorter the distance to stop [ish]]. Basically it’s one hundred metres to stop from 70 mph. That’s quite a distance and would probably surprise most people to see it laid out. It’s the length of a running track straight. When I try to visualise distances in the hundreds of metres I visualise a running track opening out to a straight line and then going across the school field. Humans are generally rubbish at estimating distances because it’s not something we do that often. Distance estimation is important in application of fire when shooting and you need to estimate distances quickly using visual clues to make sure you aim at the correct stop to hit the target. Bullets fall down to Earth, accelerating at 1g.
Now we get to the main point of this communication. In my experience over the last two months people are either:
Stupid
Unable to estimate distances
Unable to understand risk
Unable to follow instructions
Think they are indestructible
None of those things is mutually exclusive so maybe it’s all of them. My evidence is purely anecdotal and comes from my experiences of going to the supermarket. I have been to work thrice since the UK lockdown started and the few people there have been good at keeping their distances. My place of work is still open to the children of key workers and there have been some in allowing sections of this country to still function. The only other place I have mixed with the public is at the supermarket. I haven’t really ever had food shopping delivered and decided I wouldn’t start now and take a slot from someone else who needed it. Going to the supermarket is something I normally enjoy. I don’t know why but I like seeing the shop. If you think that is strange then I really love supermarkets abroad, I think they are such an insight into the people and I will happily walk up and down every aisle to see what’s there.
My normal supermarket is a Sainsbury’s nearby. In fact I’ve been using them for a while since my Nectar points balance went negative due to their errors. I’m not sure of the economic implications of a negative Nectar balance but I decided to shop there for a while. The first time I went to the supermarket they had set up a queuing system with lines on the floor where people could stand. I am not convinced these lines are two metres apart because two metres is probably further than you think but they are apart and so I’m not going there to measure them. That first time queuing someone was chatting to the person behind me and had to be asked to move away. I mean, I thought the instructions were pretty clear. Two metres is two metres. It’s more than the height of a standard house door. If you stand there with your arms outstretched you shouldn’t be able to tough another person’s hands with their arms outstretched.
Inside the store my experience was mostly positive. People seemed to be mostly keeping their distance. Most aisles are around two metres in width and so if you go down the sides you are probably a good distance away. I did find that some people weren’t following the instructions and while I waited at “pinch points” other people would go between me and the person I was waiting for. This, I think, is mostly to do with people not having patience or any altruism. I tried to do the right thing by keeping my distance but some people weren’t doing their best. This was a little frustrating. Mostly I found the experience OK and I don’t think I was too worried by the other shoppers, by and large it was OK.
A few weeks into the lockdown in the UK I went to a local Tesco store because I needed to buy some clothes. The Tesco has a larger selection of clothing and I honestly didn’t want to go to the Asda at the top of the hill because I was being snobbish. The queuing system outside the Tesco worked well but once inside I found there were problems. Tesco have placed arrows on the floor to try and make their customers move in the same direction and allow more people to browse particular products. That seems perfectly sensible but when a good proportion of the customers decided NOT to follow the one way system – WHICH IS THERE FOR THEIR SAFETY AND HEALTH – then the system fails. I was a good boy and followed the rules in place. That evening I found that a lot of customers either didn’t see the arrows or just ignored them. Too many people passed too close to me. My observances are:
People wearing face masks and gloves seem more likely to pass close.
Younger adults don’t give a shit.
Tesco don’t enforce the system – but how could they?
Kids don’t know better so that’s fine – don’t take kids shopping unless your situation requires it.
I hated the time I spent in this supermarket. It was frustrating and increased my stress levels to very high. I just wanted to get my stuff and get out. I really don’t understand why people won’t follow guidelines in place to keep them safe. I’m pretty sure they haven’t understood the risk assessment of these activities. Let’s look at these problems I saw:
Face masks and gloves – the evidence is that face masks don’t protect you from the virus. What face masks do is reduce the chance of you passing on the virus if you have it. Now, if you have symptoms you shouldn’t be outside at all. But, you could be asymptomatic, or you could be at the infectious stage just before you get symptoms. Wearing a face mask gives you a false sense of security and so you put yourself into more risky situations. I saw this is Tesco, I saw people wearing rushing around and getting close to people and they were the ones wearing face masks. Gloves won’t do shit. Gloves, again, give you a false sense of security and make it more likely that you will touch stuff. The best thing you can do is wash your hands before you go out and then wash your hands as soon as you get back. Do your best to not touch your face in the times inbetween.
Younger people – they have that sense of invulnerability that I once felt and I get it. They are going to do the things they want to do. But it could be that they are a massive vector for the virus because they are more likely to be asymptomatic. In a recent exercise walk around a lake I saw a group of around twenty youths all together. I understand and no one is really going to be able to tell them what to do.
Tesco decided to implement a one way system. I have spent a while thinking about this and my stress levels at Sainsbury’s are less because they don’t have a one way system. Therefore there isn’t a system for people to follow and so I don’t get annoyed when they don’t follow it. I still get annoyed by people passing too close but there isn’t the added issue of those people also blatantly ignoring the safety arrows of directionality.
I haven’t seen many young kids when I’ve been out and about. I understand that there are family situations that would make it hard for people to leave kids at home and I am sympathetic to them. You can only tell youngsters to do so much. This, of all the transgressions, seems the one that’s OK.
I go to Tesco rarely. This is to minimise my annoyance at people not following the system. I don’t wear a mask and I don’t wear gloves. In my head I model the water suspended droplets flowing around people as they move around and I try to avoid those areas. I hold my breath at certain times and I try to minimise the risk to myself. I don’t know if I’ve had the disease and I don’t know if I would be immune. I hope I have had it. I would like to be in the position to know that I don’t have to worry about getting it. I would like to be able to do my work and help others knowing it is unlikely I can pass it on and also unlikely I can catch it again. These are all things I do not know. The most important thing for people to do now is to reduce their own risk of getting the disease or passing it on. Until there is a vaccine available everyone is likely to get this at some point. Everyone is going to get ill and there are going to me many more deaths. What we need to do is minimise the risks to all and keep the health services going by spreading out the infection rate.
A couple more things to mention; the virus is called SARS-CoV-2, that’s the official name, the disease you get from the virus is called COVID-19. The virus belongs to the common cold virus family and not the flu virus family – they are very different shapes. The R value that the media are going on about is really the R0 value. That’s pronounced R Nought or R Zero. I think the media have been a little lazy on this one but that could be just me. There are other R values and it’s important to talk about the one you mean. This one is the only one being talked about in the media so maybe I should be softer on this issue.
I’m missing seeing other parts of the world. I’m currently stuck in a small triangle within Kent and while I do appreciate the luck I have in being in this area I am also bored of it. I would like to visit RAF bases, I want to see other people and I would like to be atop mountains. Normally by now I would have been to the Lake District and also we had plans to go to RAF Halton, RAF Brize Norton and RAF Wittering. I miss those things and as much as I know I sometimes struggle socially I do miss the people.
So, I’ve started playing X-Plane about 30% seriously. I’ve been learning how to use navigation equipment within the aircraft and I’ve even started playing with the radio settings but my last attempt at that failed and I got told off by the game for not following the ATC instructions! I recently got some payware in the form of an aircraft model, the T-7A, and it’s a nice plane. It flies easy enough, can get up to speed quickly and has a glass cockpit. I’ve even figured out some small parts of the autopilot.
UK Tour Scottish Islands
It’s slightly frustrating having to move my view around from the HUD to other parts of the cockpit to see the instruments and I’ll have to think about how to make that easier and quicker – maybe I need a second monitor? – but I’ll cope for now. One of the things I’ve always struggled with first person shoot em ups is that quick glances never seem to be that and moving the view can be time vital. Also, I’m not very good at them.
I’ve been flying around the country as part of this summer’s tour. The first few flights were down in the south over Kent and Cornwall but now I’m heading around airport hopping. A rough idea of places been so far are: RNAS Culdrose, Llanbedhr, RAF Valley, BAe Warton, RAF Leeming, Leuchars, RAF Lossiemouth, Kirkwall, Shetland, Stornoway, Prestwick, Glasgow, Isle Of Man, Belfast, Barrow.
Window Seat
UK Tour Belfast
UK Tour
Over South Shetland
A selection of screenshots
This has been good fun so far. I think I’m going to head down the east coast next. Let’s see where I end up!
I’ve been concerned recently with my lack of emotion and terror at the current Covid-19 and lockdown situation. Even when this started and I self-isolated on 17 March 2020 I was very much “oh well, I’ll have to do that” rather than feeling any particular angst at the need to do that. The last two months have had me working pretty hard remotely and only seeing one particular triangle of Kent. I’ve been to work, the supermarket and dropped the kids off. That is all I’ve done. I’ve not been anywhere else and it seems to feel completely normal. The economy is screwed, people are dying and risk-management has never been more complex and I’m just OK – I’ll get on with it.
I don’t know if this is a particularly British response to things. We seem to be a nation of people who by and large do as they’re told. That’s why we haven’t had political revolution in this country for four hundred years. It’s why, after the first world war, we didn’t have a massive change in society and leadership along with the rest of Europe. It’s probably why we tend to think we are better than everyone else. So, if the government tell us to do something by and large we do it. Sure, there are some groups who don’t understand or don’t care but this country has largely stopped for two months.
We like to think that those in charge are capable of being in charge. It is clear to me that this current government is a far from capable as possible. We would have to go back quite a way before I thought we had a government that actually cared. Those leaders at the top are lying, racist wankers. They have no talents. The people get the government they deserve. If you voted for these scum then you are to blame for the utter lack of planning, caring, organisation and intelligence in leadership at the moment. This makes it even more bothersome that I’m rather calm at the moment.
I do wonder if there is only so much panic and worry the human person can cope with. Eventually that all becomes tiresome and something has to give. It could be your mental health and the panic doesn’t die but other aspects of human behaviour and thought get amplified. This is not a good place to be. I feel that my behaviour has been more of a “oh well, let’s just get on with it” attitude. But not because the government tells me to, but more of a – this is the situation now and so I should do my best to be within that system. I guess I am being that “get on with it” British person. I know the risks to me are quite slim. I know there’s a decent chance I’ll come out of this fine. I am also glad I have a state income at the moment and if that fails then there are much larger problems with society and a lack of money is not going to matter.
I guess humans [extrapolating from n=1 : me] seem to adjust to change quite well and will do as they are told. I will say once again that I do not trust a single word of advice from the government but I also understand risk, biology and mathematics to a certain degree and so am able to understand what to do. I occasionally imagine what it would have been like eighty years ago. In the skies above my village there would have been bombers, fighters and all hell breaking loose. People living in my house at that time might have struggled mentally and might have gone mad, we don’t have those stories. But, those people living in my two up two down might have gone about their daily business thinking that this is what life is like at the moment and we still need to get the bread.
I do have a constant sense of anger at the government and the lies they say along with how terrible they are. The older I get the more I see the inequality and the uselessness of those in charge. I’m not sure I have ever really been so impressed with a government looking back through my time. We’ve had the following prime ministers Callahan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May and now Johnson. Of those that I remember I think two of them might have been just about OK and did the best they could. I am not endorsing everything they did – illegal wars for one thing and PPI for another – I’m just saying they were less bad than the others. There is far too much that needs to be done and too few people who really see the need. I said to a manager of mine recently that I’m always angry. I am. I’m like Dr Banner but without the green alter ego.
There is nothing that is safe from risk of injury or harm. Just living day to day carries a risk of death. You could drop down now from a heart attack or already have cancer. Some illness is random and terrible when it happens and although we know there are things to do to reduce the risk that is all you can do, reduce the risk. Safe really means that the risk of bad stuff is reduced enough for us to accept what we are about to do. Humans are terrible at understanding risk.
Every time we do something then we are accepting the risks associated with that action for the reward. If I go to the supermarket in normal times then I would drive there, I would come into close contact with a lot of other people and I would then drive home. Driving contains the largest risk there but I accept the risk for the convenience of getting to and from the supermarket easily. Danger of disease transmission isn’t something that normally enters our heads but being in a closed building with a few other hundred people who have touched all manner of surfaces with their dirty hands could prove to be risky behaviour if one of them had a dodgy disease [again, talking in normal times].
If I want to get on a train to somewhere then I hope that it won’t crash. That’s not a thought that goes through my head because generally train journeys in this country are quite safe. The risk of bad things happening is low and the reward is good – I get somewhere fast and normally quite relaxed. Flying is another one of those activities where we accept that the risk of death is acceptable for the convenience of travelling somewhere fast and far. We know that aircraft are safer than using the roads but we are more worried about flying because humans are terrible at understanding risk. 267 people died in passenger planes last year WORLDWIDE compared to 1870 killed on UK roads in the same time period.
I did a zip-line-wire-death-slide thing in Cornwall over a quarry lake. Was I worried about doing that? No. The risk was low. I was strapped in. It was run by a reputable company and I assumed that they had met all safety aspects of the set up. While some might worry about it and hopefully overcome their fears, those fears are unfounded. The risks have been reduced to a point where they are acceptable for the outcome. The zip-line was great fun. Last summer I had a flight in an RAF training helicopter. Now, ‘copters are the worst of transport methods for technical difficulties and flying characteristics. Was I worried? No. The risks were acceptable and it was great. The processes behind the RAF are exceptional and the risk was suitably low. I once had a flight over the 12 Apostles in Australia in a R44 [I think], again, the risks were low and I was trusting the regulations that existed for that country.
If we chose to do something then we should be balancing out the risks realistically with the rewards. We trust the regulations. We hope that when things do go wrong that the regulations change to take that into account. We trust that there are organisations out there making sure these things are done properly. This does contradict capitalism a little as companies will moan about “costs” but they get over it and their product gets the boost. There was a time that companies had to be told to include seatbelts in cars. It became law for three-point harnesses to be included in the front seats in 1968. The law to wear them was introduced many times in the 70s but failed [how the fuck?] and wearing front seatbelts eventually became compulsory in 1983. Rear seatbelts became compulsory equipment in 1986 and mandatory to wear from 1991. I mean, how did it take so long? What was the problem? Why are people so stupid?
I’m a qualified shooting range officer and I can tell you that the regulations are immense. The rules are all designed to make the activity as safe as possible. Is all risk removed? No. But the risk is manageable and acceptable. The most likely injury is a small cut to your hand where you are dealing with metal parts on a weapon, but even this is a small risk. I even take teenagers to a shooting range. It is safe. The regulations and environment are built and designed in such a way that the risk of injury or worse is reduced.
If the risks are mitigated through planning and regulation then activities are deemed acceptable. We spend our entire lives running mini-risk assessments in our heads all the time. I’m extrapolating from n=1 there, me. We think about the reality of risks although some people are overcome by the perception of risk and fail to complete some activities. When we talk about something being safe we really mean that the risks are reduced for us. The reward is worth it.
The village in which I live was primarily built for workers of the Burham Brick Lime and Cement Works Company based close by at the river front. The entire landscape around here was formed by the mining for materials. The brick works supplied bricks until around 1938 and the product was used for the building of the East Wing of Buckingham Palace. I’ve heard that the bricks in my house are the same type as those in the domain of the privileged.
If you wander around down near the reservoir and the river you will invariably see bricks lying around. This one below I took out of the ground out of sheer curiosity. It’s quite nice that these are just there for all to see.
So, along with getting the new PC was the general concept that I would have a machine capable of running X-Plane which has ridiculous graphics simulation algorithms. I’m sure there could be flight simulators that run quicker and also look better but because of the physics engine employed by X-Plane it is the most accurate in terms of aircraft movement through the air. It used to be that to run X-Plane I had to turn off any clouds. These seem to really mess with the frame rate and the bottleneck occurs on the bus between the CPU RAM. I had spent a lot of time reading about finely tuning the software to give the best compromise between frame rate and looks. The new PC doesn’t really seem to have any problems and I just turn everything up to 11.
Browsing for a slightly better looking Great Britain I found, I don’t remember how, a website offering sexy GB scenery. I had to pay for it but it did look good. I was concerned about splashing out without being able to test the software but the company had a Demo area around Southampton. Orbx have a selection of payware airports along with GB scenery. I downloaded the Demo area and flew from Southampton Airport over Portsmouth and Gosport. The fact that I could see aircraft carriers in the harbour along with HMS Victory and the forts in the Solent meant I was smitten. The whole area looked great. So, I took the plunge and bought some scenery of GB. I had some cash stashed away from the sale of my old graphics card and those proceeds went to these views.
I have not been disappointed. There is now 367GB of GB scenery on the hard drive and while load times feel like forever, X-Plane is terrible at some things, the whole of the island of Great Britain looks spectacular. I’ve flown from Manston to Lydd to Southend to Heathrow. I’ve also covered Cornwall along with the Lake District. Next steps will be Wales and Scotland, specifically the Mach Loop and Lock Ness. Below is a gallery of some sights so far. After flying for a little while I turned some clouds on just to make it look more realistic. I know I’ve got the frame rate showing up in the top left corner and you might think that 30fps isn’t that great. Trust me, I would have had around 2fps using the old PC and these settings. I’m not really into bragging rights about fps and anything more that 50 seems iffy, not worth it? Happy to be proved wrong on that. Also, below, are a couple of pictures of the F-35B using the old scenery. Hopefully you can see the difference.
As I was falling asleep last night I’m pretty sure I was drafting a communication for this site. It was going to be short but worth it. A suitable piece of content that would mean I keep publishing things here. But I forgot what it was. I could have me-mailed a message but I don’t like looking at my phone once I’m upstairs and so I hoped I would remember it. I didn’t. My hope failed.
So, instead, here’s another picture of my PC. I hadn’t realised I’d put something here a short while ago but here it is in flight simulator mode.
The Rig
I’ve already been criticised for the PC LED colours not matching the rest of the unit, I can change them, I just like the red, it makes it look angry. Also, the keyboard has lights which I’m not convinced are worth it but I smile whenever I look at them whirling around. I could match that too but I don’t care.
On the desk is a Pooley’s Flight Guide to every UK airport which makes taxiing around quite a lot easier. It’s open at Southend EGMC and I’ve been flying a T-7A Red Hawk around over Kent and shooting shit. I’m using the F-7 version because it’s got bang stuff added to it. The plane was made by AOA Simulations and is the third piece of hardware I’ve got from them. I have a F-35B, the CV-22 and this F-7 T-7A. I like their kit. I also like my Grumman Goose but that’s mostly because I’m still in love with Tales Of the Gold Monkey.
F-7A parked at Lydd
T-7A Taxi
Grumman Goose in the Lake District
MV-22B on a misty day in the Lakes
It looks like I need to take some pictures of the F-35B and so I will get on that soon. Look out here for more pictures of these lovely planes. I might try and find some extra special spots around the world to bomb also.
A while back I gave up my Spotify subscription. My reasons were partly that I just kept listening to the same songs over and over and I also thought the payment that the artist receives was paltry. At that time I decided I would buy albums of artists I liked and own the music. I think this is the morally correct thing to do. There are a number of artists I really listen a lot to and they don’t make masses of money. I’m not talking about mega-bands like Metallica or Maiden, I’m talking here about bands I regularly play in 500 seat theatres. I say theatres but they are more the loveliest dives in London.
I saw the band/singer/artist Leaether Strip at M’era Luna a few years ago and I loved it. I thought he was great. Such a nice chap with excellent music. His husband was playing the keyboards for him and it was clear there was such love between the two of them. Now, I’m not really a “meet your heroes” type of person. I’ve heard enough stories about famous people being, well, people and assholes so I’m happy to leave the artists alone and let them get on and I’ll enjoy what they do. Some music I don’t listen to anymore because of the behaviour of the artist – LostProphets.
The reason for this communication is I bought an album by Leaether Strip and I know I like the music but I also know that the money helps the two men get on with their lives and especially to support Kurt as he’s been ill for a while and has had a kidney transplant. I get music I know I will like and they get a little bit of help for their lives. Seems a fair saw to me. I’m very happy for you to use the link in this paragraph to go and buy stuff also.
This area of Kent in which I reside has some decent human history going on. When mostly forested the island of Great Britain [it amuses me immensely that this place is named after a part of France, must make those racists really angry, especially singing Rule Britannia] had many locals doing their thing and trying to survive. Once people died they were buried in long barrows. These constructions had large stones, megaliths, placed at their entrances. There are a number of these in the Medway area and yesterday I used my exercise to go and complete my total of the East Medway Megaliths. These beasts were placed around 5000 years and and that is pretty darn impressive as far as I am concerned.
Kits Coty
In the past I’ve seen the coffin stone and I’ve also seen Kits Coty before as it’s on a running route I take. Here’s the view from Kits Coty, the weather was lovely but I am concerned that it’s been too warm for too long and the upcoming catastrophe of anthropogenic climate change is accelerating:
Kent from Kits Coty
I’ve just discovered Scheduled Monuments which is a list of important stuff as agreed by the Secretary Of State for that stuff. There’s a lovely interactive map on the Historic England website. You can also download a PDF version of the map and it is gorgeous. So, Kits Coty is scheduled monument 1012939 and according to that website:
This example has a particularly well-preserved burial chamber and is also of high archaeological potential due to the survival of the remains of the burial mound and the flanking ditches. The burial chamber having been taken into guardianship, the monument is also of high amenity value.
Historic England
Little Kits Coty
Just down the Downs is a collection of stones called Little Kits Coty or the “countless stones”. I think I’ve written about them before but they are still just as pretty and nestled in a corner of a field. There is no path to them so you have to take on the traffic!
Countless Stones
These boulders are also a scheduled monument as recognised by the Secretary Of State. These are number 1013673 and part of their description reads:
The atypical example of Little Kit’s Coty House represents an unusual variant of this class of monument but nevertheless forms part of the group of Neolithic burial monuments known as the Medway Megaliths. Being held in Guardianship, the monument is of high amenity value.
Historic England
The White Horse Stone
A small distance away is the White Horse Stone. It’s a single megalith but not quite as mega as the others in this area. According to Wikipedia there were other constructions here but they were destroyed in the 19th century.
White Horse Stone
This is monument number 1005181 and according to Historic England, again:
The White Horse Stone is a good example of its type, which survives well. The area immediately surrounding the stone is likely to contain archaeological and environmental information relating to the stone and the landscape in which it was erected.
Historic England
I would encourage you to look over the Historic England website as the maps, provided by OS, are absolutely gorgeous and the information there is pretty good. It also has listed buildings on the site and these are indicated on the map with little triangles.
Roman Villa, Eccles
Just south-west of my house lie buried remains of a Roman villa. It was in position from 65CE through to around 400CE which is pretty impressive. While it lies under farmland now it was excavated in the 1960s and it was quite an impressive size. Given how close it is to the site of the Battle Of Medway along with ease of access to the river and lying not far from where the Romans invaded it would have had prominent visitors and been of some importance. It is scheduled monument 1011770 and there are details if you follow that link. Wikipedia has improved over the last few years and there’s quite a bit of information there along with links to the original papers.
The walking route that is safest to travel from Little Kits Coty to the White Horse Stone involves using and underpass to get to the other side of the A229 Bluebell Hill dual carriage way. This underpass is quite pretty in shape and looks exactly like the launch tubes from Battlestar Galactica [imo].
Along with my investigation of the SARS-COV 2 Virus and how it infects humans I also need to understand how the current detection tests work. Let’s get a few things straight first though. The current [early May] testing regime in the UK is pathetic and nowhere near enough to be able to track where this virus is going. Also, let’s be clear about this, Covid-19 is not a mild cold or flu. Some people won’t suffer very much with it but others are dying. I read a tweet from a 30-ish year old person saying that it felt like they couldn’t breathe for three days. I don’t want to experience that.
There are two main types of test that can be done for the virus. At the moment, in the UK these are done when you first show symptoms. That way, if you have CV-19 you can isolate and if you haven’t then you can go about your business. This is a method for reducing the transmission of this killer disease.
The first test detects the virus itself. This can be done by taking material from easy to reach places on the human body. For this test to work you need to have been infected for a few days already and for the virus to multiply in your body to get to the nose or throat. As the infection continues this test becomes less effective because the virus stays largely in the lungs and reduces elsewhere. As this virus is RNA only and the test can only detect DNA there is some chemistry magic to be done first to convert the RNA and then all DNA in the sample is copied. Finally more chemistry is done to detect the DNA version of the RNA of the virus. This can take two hours to two days. All it tests if whether you have the virus in your nose or throat at that time. It doesn’t mean you are clear. There can be errors.
The second type of test detects the body’s response to the infection. It detects the cells in our blood that fight the virus. By definition this test needs to be done once the infection is being fought. There are two main types of antibody that can be detected and the amounts of those in the blood vary over time. I found this lovely graphic on Wikipedia:
It’s quite hard in these times to find decent correct information on the web about what is going on. I’ve been avoiding newspapers and other traditional media and mainly sticking with podcasts where the presenter / interviewee is qualified or Wikipedia. The World Health Organisation website is brilliant too and has the level of detail I wanted.
![Burham Brick [ ] Works](http://fooyah.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/20200517_140803785_iOS-1024x768.jpg)
