I think this is it for the next while. I have done some final messing around and think I’ve got a format I like. It’s a 47″ display, so quite large and looks lovely. I’ve added a remote plug control for the Magic Mirror Pi so I can turn off an on easier than just unplugging it.
Magic Mirror – Resting Set Up
So, finally [for now], the modules are:
top_left – current date and time.
top_left – current weather followed by weather forecast.
bottom_left – state of lights in the house.
top_right – what music is playing in the house.
top_right aircraft near to the house listed in order of ascending distance with direction [assumes ADS-B transmitter and sending lat/long details].
top_center – Conway’s Game Of Life cellular automata.
center – picture of view of Earth from the sun-side. Animates over a period of a few minutes.
bottom_center – new headlines from chosen sources.
Overall, I’m pleased. The next thing would be to add a rotating module that switches between different views or maybe even a gesture controller so that you could swipe through different screens to see what you want. Whether I will get to these is another matter.
I have been playing around with the modules on screen in my Magic Mirror display and so far I have settled on this layout:
Nice MagicMirror Set Up
On the left there are “things happening now”. On the right is my list of local aircraft and the Sonos display although that’s not visible here. In the centre I have news at the bottom and a Game Of Life simulation at the top. It means the picture animates at 1 frame per second and once it reaches an alternating state it restarts.
I think I’m going to look into having the modules rotate through a sequence in each area. This will mean a more changing display and maybe some moon-phase and tide modules!
I’ve spent some time in the last week getting a Raspberry Pi running on my new “spare” TV. I put a new Philips TV into the lounge last week and wrote about that in this communication. I’m coming up to personal isolation day 13. This means I’ve kinda had time to program another Raspberry Pi and get it displaying information on the spare TV. I wanted to have a map of the aircraft in the sky near me and I might eventually look into writing a script that will automatically reload a webpage with password every ten minutes and put it in full screen.
I already have a Raspberry Pi in the loft. It is receiving aircraft ADS-B signals and decoding them. It then feeds the results to 360 Radar, an aggregator website that then publishes all the positions. I wrote about that quite a bit. Just use the search function and find ADS-B.
This time I was working with a program called Magic Mirror. It should be used with silvered glass to create a display mirror but I just want it for the display. The initial program was easy to load and get working. The trickier thing was getting custom modules loaded and then get their parameters working correctly. I had to edit js files all the time and so I found that irritating but rewarding. It’s all about the syntax, which I got eventually.
Magic Mirror Display
Basically the elements are:
Top_Left – Current date and time.
Top_Center – Two calendars of upcoming things.
Bottom_Center – Three RSS news feeds. One from each of the BBC, Defence Blog and The Guardian. These change at different rates depending on how much there is to read.
Top_Right – Current weather. The temperature is measured in Kelvin – because why would you measure it in anything else? Also, this updates every ten minutes or so.
Top_Right – A weather forecast of the next six days of weather. Again, temperatures in Kelvin.
Center_Right – A feed displaying what is playing on the home SONOS system and in which rooms.
Bottom_Right – which lights are on in the house. I mean I could just look around my house because it’s that small but why would you when you can have the information displayed on a screen.
Bottom_Left – My proudest part of this display. A section devoted to which aircraft are closest to my house and [now] where they are. It takes a feed from the Raspberry Pi in the loft which is decoding ADS-B signals. So, not all aircraft will be shown here but most interesting ones will be. Given that there’s so little flying at the moment the top ten closest aircraft are going out to 180km. Once the world returns to normal it will interesting to see how far out this goes. About 50km I reckon.
Black Mirror Display
The picture above has the added details of how far the aircraft are from my house and in which direction.
This project has taken about ten hours of putting together and playing with the software. I think it is mostly finished. There are a couple of small things and I’m investigating them over time. At the moment the Pi starts in the wrong resolution if the TV isn’t turned on before the Pi. I have looked at this and it seems to be all levels of wrong so I don’t know how to fix it. I have googled like an expert and pretty much figured out what it isn’t. I’d really like the Pi to turn on at a particular time and turn the TV on at the same time. I think this is possible but will take much work.
I currently have the Pi plugged into a Philips Hue smart plug that means I can turn it on and off from anywhere. This is a helpful feature. The TV is then set to turn off after a short while without receiving a signal.
I do feel quite smug at the moment. Also as the TV showed up two RAF aircraft earlier. They must have had their ADS-B signals on and so were cargo/passenger planes. All in all I’m a happy chap.
This communication was drafted in May 2016. I have left it so long to carry on writing this that the website is gone, it is no more. There is nothing there. But, thank goodness for the Internet Archive we can see what this website looked like. It is all amazing.
I can’t remember how I found out about this website. It might have been part of Bullshit Saturday, I’m not sure. I’ve decided to blank out the name on this site as that seemed the right thing to do.
Look at the gloriousness, Angel Practitioner, Heal Yourself, Blocks in your Mind, Listen To The Whispers. Every part of this is amazing. I mean it’s all wrong but it is amazing. I can assure you the last thing you want me or many people to do is listen to the whispers.
Let’s get some things sorted straight away. Reiki is bullshit level 2. It’s utter rubbish and doesn’t do anything. I would describe it as “touching someone”. That’s all it is. I could even be that the masters of reiki don’t even touch because they can channel their energy flow so well. what crap. If I didn’t have morals then maybe I would become a practitioner and charge people plenty of money for my services. It’s pretty easy to do.
So, I remember that looking through this website it turns out there are different levels of Angelic Reiki and this got me excited. I mean, it must mean there are exams or tests or practicals? There must be some way of measuring this mode of healing that mean you can progress from one level to another. I desperately want to know more. I looked at the links on the website:
Angelic Reiki Levels 1 & 2
2.5 days GBP252
A complete Karma Cutting and Angelic Clearing prior to initiation.
Angelic Reiki Levels 1 and 2 attunements to the Angelic Kingdom of Light through Archangel Metatron and The Sarim. This includes an attunement given by 30 Archangels, the chief Celestial Angel Princes.
Allocation of a Healing Angel or Angels to work with you on a permanent basis
Practical ‘hands on’ experience in the healing methodology involving healing as a channel, healing with intention, healing with an Ascended master, Galactic Healers and the first steps in multi-dimensional Healing.
Working with Chakras, Colours, Crystals and Flower remedies.
Attuning the tools of your trade.
A Master Crystal to hold the divine Angelic Healing Codes.
An Angelic Reiki Practitioner Certificate
A detailed Manual and much more
So, for GBP 100 a day I can attend this course and learn about the THIRTY Archangels. Did you know there are 30 of them? I didn’t. I must be very lacking in my angel lore. I should really start at the top of the list shouldn’t I? Karma Cutting and Angelic Cleaning – sounds like taking drugs and a colonic irrigation. I’d be quite tempted with this. I wonder what this involves? I’m so curious and yet I think I would die laughing if I actually attended this course. Angelic Kingdom of Light – I really want to know what this is about. I think it might be time for a deep rabbit hole dive on the internet but I’m slightly afraid I would forget to have lunch. Allocation of a healing angel – I doubt very much that angels are happy to be allocated, told what to do. I’m be interested to see if I get that grumpy angel who is just sarcastic and doesn’t really want to be there. Ascended master, Galactic Healers, multi-dimensional healing – this is glorious. I mean they are words and those words do mean things but I doubt that they mean what these angel groupies think. If this all works and is legitimate [it’s not] then all these people should be rushing to help cure all those people dying of Covid 19 at this moment. The Excel arena in London should be full of fucking alternative medicine people to help this world. But it doesn’t work does it? It’s all bullshit and deep down these people know that. That’s why they aren’t visible right now because they know the stuff they peddle to the unknowing doesn’t fucking work.
Chakras, Colours, Crystals and Flower remedies – all bullshit. All peddled by people who either are liars or deluded. This sort of stuff is gobbled up by those wanting the easy answer. People who use this stuff and spend real money on this usually think that a bad illness can be cured with a cup of tea. They struggle with the real world and the fact that it’s all so hard. Hoping that rubbing your foot will cure your liver illness is easy isn’t it. It means there’s an obvious cure or even an obvious cause. It makes things understandable. It possible stops things being so scary. But it’s also bullshit and that’s why it’s dangerous. Much like everything in life we seek simple answers for complicated issues and it means it’s easier for us to comprehend. It’s also why incompetent leaders get elected because they seek approval from our basic desires of simple answers.
A Master Crystal to hold the divine Angelic Healing Codes – I want one. I really want to know what this is and how do you tell a Master Crystal from a lower ranked Crystal? Amazing. You’d also get a manual and a certificate for your time. I wonder how this course is assessed? I wonder how you know you can do this? It’s amazing. Not only that but there are more levels:
Angelic Reiki Master Workshop – Levels 3 & 4
3 days GBP450.
Revisiting healing techniques learnt in the 1 & 2 workshops. Opportunities to share healing experiences
Healing through 3rd eye contact used in Atlantis
Healing with soul group energies
Healing with energies of the Divine presence & the Divine Blessing
During this workshop all participants will move into the area of healing that will become paramount on this planet during the next few years
13 symbols are given in this workshop, which are a gateway to the multidimensional healing. The symbols given will be activated to Angelic level through the 7 levels of form and divine form by Archangel Metatron.
Full Attunement to Angelic Reiki 3rd Degree Level
Full Attunement to Angelic Reiki 4th Degree Level
Gifts of Higher knowledge given by The Sarim, The Angelic princes of the Angelic Kingdom
Healing Practice sessions
Advice how to teach Angelic Reiki Workshops and how to carry out Angelic Reiki Attunements
A Comprehensive Master Teacher Manual
A Certificate of Training achievement to 3rd & 4th Degree in Angelic Reiki
I guess this course starts off correctly with a revision session. Then we get this gloriousness: Healing through 3rd eye contact used in Atlantis – I have no words for this. I know what I think the 3rd eye is but I don’t think that’s correct. I wonder if I don’t know enough about this stuff to be able to judge now? Is this mental healing? I don’t know, but it sounds amazing.
Soul group energies, Divine presence & the Divine Blessing – they should just teach this in the first place. If you just need to have a chat with someone else to improve your healing then why don’t you jump straight to that?
13 symbols are given in this workshop, which are a gateway to the multidimensional healing. The symbols given will be activated to Angelic level through the 7 levels of form and divine form by Archangel Metatron – I am fucking dying right now. This is so beautiful! I’ve looked up Metatron and it turns out that they are the greatest of angels. This angel is so great that it’s not mentioned in the Pentateuch and only briefly mentioned in the Talmud. It’s almost as if they were just making shit up back then.
Higher knowledge given by The Sarim, The Angelic princes of the Angelic Kingdom – this is another one I’m going to have to look up. I clearly don’t know enough about angelic lore to attend these courses. It’s so wonderful! I’ve just googled this and it would appear that there’s “confusion” about what the Sarim are. They might be goat-demons or they might be part of a twelve winged seraphim. What utter shit. It’s so good it’s amazing.
I loved this site when I first saw it four years ago and it still makes me smile. If they, the reiki people, can give out certificates for levels then their skills should be measurable which then means we can, perversely, measure it. If we can measure it then we can know what it is and we can use it to heal and cure people in reality. But, you know what? It doesn’t work and so that’s why there are no reiki machines in hospitals.
The CCF Facebook page look as though they have a picture of me on their front page header thing. I mean, that’s cool an’ all. Feel a little glowing of pride. I’m 90% sure. It’s definitely the helo I flew in. It’s definitely RAF Shawbury. My OC was in that position taking photographs as I entered the helo. I seem to remember him showing me this afterwards. Black boots, stable belt, quite tall. That’s enough evidence for me. #proud.
[I found this draft from December 2016! So I thought it was the time to get this one published properly. There are a few other drafts on my site and maybe I’ll get them released over the next few weeks.]
Bullshit.
That’s clearly what this is. But I owe more of an explanation to you all.
Here are my thoughts:
The first 30 seconds were pretty good. I didn’t really hear anything wrong in there. All those words and meanings were correct.
“In addition, medicine often fails badly in resolving chronic conditions . . . . “, notice how they don’t say “cure”, notice how all those conditions are remarkably complex and there aren’t any single solutions to them. Also, cancer isn’t one disease, it’s thousands. These are the sorts of problems many people will live with and have to learn to manage those issues.
“Now, patients and practitioners in the UK are turning more and more to a complementary therapy . . ” firstly, numbers please. I don’t think that is the case. But they are selling things here so they will use persuasive language. “Complementary” also means DOESN’T WORK. Things that work in medicine are called MEDICINE and not any other bullshit.
“Safe and gentle solution . . . “, because they legally aren’t allowed to say CURE. When complementary therapists say “safe” and “free from side-effects” they also mean free from “effects”. Everything that you do or take has side-effects on your body. We all love paracetamol and ibuprofen but too much and you’ll fuck yourself over. Even the boring drugs have side-effects. Everything has side-effects. Want to know what doesn’t have side-effects? Something that does nothing.
“Widely used for over 50 years in Germany . . . ” is an appeal to authority and history. It doesn’t mean it works. Do you know what, if this German invention worked don’t you think they would be exporting it all over the world?
Look at the people in white lab coats trying to add authority to the video. Ha ha.
“Bioresonance” it might be a real thing but it is sciency sounding and so can’t possibly be made up. It’s exactly why all the Star Trek technical language really means things.
“Quantum physics and biophysics”, AMAZING! I hadn’t watch this video for four years and they’ve gone full Quantum. Don’t you just love it when this happens. Can’t wait to see what they say.
All cells and pathogens radiate electromagnetic waves in particular frequencies. Wow. I’m not sure they do. Sure, we can read brain waves because there is definitely electrical activity in the brain but I don’t think that’s true for all cells. Most cells communicate on a chemical level and so they can’t radiate EM waves or if they do the power output is so small that it’s far lower than any form of background EM and so unreadable. If we did radiate EM then we’d interfere with all the electrical devices in our houses. I’m pretty sure that doesn’t happen. They’ve been clever here because they are mixing stuff they hope people won’t understand to sound plausible. But it’s bullshit.
Bioresonance can figure out which frequencies belong to pathogens and bad things and neutralise them. How? Doesn’t say. What about “good” bacteria?
“55 countries worldwide . . . ” appeal to popularity.
“report remarkable improvements in their health and well being . . . ” self-reported outcomes are the worst. What about science trials? “Well being” doesn’t mean anything legally, it’s not defined in any particular way. You can say it and not get sued because it doesn’t mean a thing.
“non invasive, drug free, no known side effects . . . ” means it’s DOESN’T work. But it sounds nice doesn’t it. If you are desperate and you think the doctors are letting you down and someone has a, not-cure, a solution then you might be willing to spend your money.
“Safe for babies and vulnerable . . ” because it doesn’t work that’s why.
“Used in China . . . .” appeal to popularity and history etc. The whole Chinese alternative medicine thing is terrible. It stems from after the second world war when the government wrote a pamphlet for doctors which had things at the front that would work – drugs – and because of shortages it also listed things that wouldn’t work but would give the impression that doctors knew what they were doing – Chinese alternative medicine. It’s all based on lies.
“Increasingly popular with vets and equine specialists . . .” because selling just to people won’t make enough money.
Ann’s testimonial isn’t worth shit. Testimonials are the worst form of evidence. The plural of anecdotes isn’t evidence it’s just anecdotes. So I actually didn’t listen to anything she had to say. It’s not worth it.
And there we have it. Bulshit. So I headed over to their website to see what is going on. There is so much there I am going to have to save it for another day. I hope it doesn’t take me four years to get around to writing about it! Let’s see what happens.
I am currently starting day eight of my fourteen day self-isolation. My first day in this position, the very day after BJ announced these conditions, was my birthday. I had a new TV delivered. It didn’t seem so bad, I had time to sort out the entertainment room while also keeping in touch with my duties at work. The new TV was precisely the fault of me “popping” into Richer Sounds and seeing an advert for a Philips Ambilight television on one of their brochures. The price seemed good and I do have a Philips lighting system at home. Along with 4K [I’m skeptical] and HDR it didn’t take much for me to decide to get it delivered.
Blank Wall For TV
The TV was placed up and the 4K system tested. Now, it turns out the AV Amp and HDMI switch doesn’t pass through the 4K and HDR signal. This is a touch annoying. I devise a work around where HDMI cables go straight to the TV and then sound is returned to the Amp via ARC. That didn’t work, I couldn’t get the ARC signal to send. Not sure why but it was probably one of those tiny settings somewhere deep within the menu system. I must have looked through the TV menus over twenty times. It’s a terrible menu system by the way. So, next option was to use an optical cable to output 5.1 sound from the TV to the amp. I didn’t have a cable long enough so had to wait. For one evening I had to watch TV and have the sound come from the TV’s own speakers [horror].
Next day an optical cable was delivered and the sound signal was tested. Now I would have 5.1 sound output by the TV to the Amp. This seemed livable with. Except it wasn’t. My Amp is 7.2, the PS4 outputs 7.1 and two of my speakers would now be redundant. I tried. I honestly tried. The convincing factor that I wouldn’t cope with this was the sound delay needed adjusting for all inputs. This meant changing the AV-Sync settings whenever I switched TV source. There were too many little bits in between the sight and sound signals. What a disaster.
I went searching through all the instruction manuals [in PDF format on my computer] and sought a solution. I couldn’t find one. What I needed [ha, “needed”, what an interesting word] was an amplifier that would throughput 4K and HDR along with separating out the sound signals keeping my home system as it is. It didn’t take long to find what I wanted. So, I ordered the Sony STR-DN1080.
When it arrived I reckon it took two hours to unplug the entire old system and then wire up the new amplifier. I left the auto-calibration for another day when it wouldn’t be so un-neighbourly and just set up the basics. I checked the inputs worked, check the TV signal, checked the 4K throughput and HDR rendering. It worked and there was no sound delay, or if there was it was consistent between all modules to make the settings consistent.
Gran Turismo looks bloody gorgeous in HDR, can’t believe I’ve been missing this.
I Parish
The lounge is now fully equipped although no longer 3D compliant. The system works well and I have been really impressed with all aspects of it. The ambilight system is very impressive. I can even link the TV light system to existing coloured lights in the house and I did this with a LED strip I had. The strip is on the ceiling in the lounge and looks really nice. But, when connected to the ambilight on the TV it floods the whole room with changing light that is, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, too much. I disconnected that system. Maybe if my lounge was bigger than its current form it would be less overpowering. Can you believe I actually turned a TV feature off!
Entertainment Corner [asymmetric]
Above is nearly all of entertainment corner. There is a Sonos unit just hidden to the top right, it uses an optical cable to send signals to the amplifier, you can just see two wires top right, one is white [power] another is grey [optical]. So, here we have from the top; a BluRay player, PS4, Shield TV, Amplifier, PSVR unit. Yes, the cabling is a mess. No, I am not going to sort it out – I’m lucky enough that this all fits in this space. If I had rear access I might get in there and fiddle around. Yes, the USB Gran Turismo back up memory stick looks terrible. Yes, the USB hub needs sorting out, I have a plan. Yes, it is asymmetric, but I really like that so I don’t care. Yes, they are Lego bricks separating each unit for heat flow purposes and no, I won’t change that.
Entertainment Centre
This is not a blank wall anymore. I’ve got quite a nice TV along with a decent sound system and games console. All I have to do now is avoid buying the PS Turbo or whatever it’s called. I think I can probably manage to do that.
I did have the issue of what to do with the old TV. I’m not really a TV in the bedroom kinda guy. Bedrooms are for few purposes and watching television is not one of those. I used to find it frustrating with an ex when she watched Tv in bed and all I wanted to do was sleep. The TV programmes were very poor too. I think that’s the first time I became aware of Gillian McKeith, she was presenting a TV show called “You Are What You Eat” which is true but not in the way she meant it. I remember her talking about eating raw seeds and how the whole plant’s energy entered you. It was a seed. Just a seed. Fucking dangerous bullshit.
So, the older television is now on the wall in the dining room. I’ve connected a Roku device to it so I can stream the audio-visual medium to the screen. I have plans to buy a Raspberry Pi and use that as a information screen type thing or possible to have live plane details on the screen. I’m not sure yet what to do with it. Putting this TV up did require some drilling etc but it was fun. When looking at the TV there is an issue where it doesn’t look horizontal but it is, the problem is the ceiling coving which isn’t level. If I had the uber-PS I could place the current PS4 with the dining room screen but I won’t be doing that.
Dining Room Black Mirror
My current project is to build a display onto the DR screen. My Shield TV already has Dakboard running as its screen saver and I quite like that but I don’t really want to pay for the full version so I am looking into using a Raspberry Pi and either a browser running on that in full screen with a self refresh timer or some software that will run a display board. I guess there are plenty out there. So, wait for the news on that.
I was a little shocked yesterday after I wrote a tweet that kinda blew up. Normally there’re not many who view my words and thoughts and I understand that. Who would be interested in what I have to say? I am not a regular tweeter who has a particular theme. I’m not in a position of power. So, I just say stuff that comes to mind. Below is my tweet as of 0650 GMT Mar 23 2020.
Thinking about what I wrote there is one main reason it went viral and that is Whitstable was trending at the time and probably also Skegness. This means this tweet would appear in those selective areas of twitter when people browsed. I didn’t do this deliberately but if you wanted a tweet to “hit it big” then I guess including trending hashtags and words is the best way. You have to deliberately write a tweet with all the right ingredients to make it go viral [or just be a cunt like Piers Morgan].
My phone kept pinging with all the notifications that I turned off those notifications for Twitter. It was actually annoying. I also scanned a few of the comments that people wrote in reply but didn’t really take them in. Much like I don’t allow comments on my YouTube videos or these communications I’m not interested in your opinions, you won’t change my mind unless I know you and I don’t need the emotional mess that some comments can create.
If Whitstable and Skegness were [in reality] busy yesterday then I am once again amazed at how stupid people are. Mind you, the country keeps voting Tory so I should already know.
I think what I want to do is explain what the tweet means. I had some people comment that Skegness doesn’t have tory voters and that it’s not just tories out in Whitstable. I’d like to point out that I didn’t say that. I hedged my bets on whether the news was reliable first using the [in reality] bit. This allows the trending tweets to be not true and allows me to still say what I want to say. If the reports were true then I explained that I am amazed at how stupid people are. I am amazed at that. It freaks me out just how much people don’t listen or do the best for themselves. I know about it a bit because I’m a human too [believe it or not] and we all do stupid things at times but I have to say, gathering in large groups at the moment is really fucking stupid.
After explaining the stupidity I placed a full-stop. This means that sentence has now stopped. I start a new one explaining that I already know people are stupid because they keep voting tory. I even capitalised the word tory and I often don’t capitalise words that I don’t respect, thank god. I’m not calling tory voters stupid, I’m sure they have their reasons [mostly selfish] and I wasn’t calling anyone at Whitstable or Skegness tory although I was calling them stupid. I am consistently amazed that this country keeps voting the tories into power. I was chatting recently and that person said “you don’t have to be stupid to vote tory just greedy”.
I am glad that as I get older I get more and more left wing. I think we should be helping each other more. I think we should have certain things in state ownership. I’m not a communist or anything like that and I even think businesses should be able to run themselves within a strongly regulated framework. I think we should all act and behave in ways that benefit society and treat people humanely. I don’t think we do that at the moment. Anyway, it was interesting seeing a tweet blow up [a little]. I am amused it has 499 likes. Not quite the 500, but that’s just an integer which is half of a power of our number base system. 245 would have been nice.
I wrote a short while ago about the area in which I live and how I would consider it countryside but there’s also the machines of human activity nearby. In that communication I mentioned motorways, supermarkets, train tunnels and an airport. So, here is a map of Eccles’s surrounding area:
Eccles and environs
And here is a map with various things highlighted. The legend is below the picture.
Things Of Humanity
Yellow: motorways
Green: airport
Blue: high speed train tunnel
Pink dots: Supermarkets I visit
Below is where I grew up, the village of Hatfield Heath in Essex, and I’ve marked similar things onto that map. Perhaps that is why I like my current village. I spent nineteen years on the Heath and had a very similar environment.
I do like living in the country away from things. Well, I’m not really that far away from things; there are two motorways within five minutes, all the supermarkets you could want and I live under the flight path for a small airport, which essentially means this is an almost perfect place to live. It’s generally quiet, even though I can hear the M20 and also the Eurostar as it blasts its way through a tunnel in the North Downs, there are aircraft [at the moment] flying overhead on their way to the money centres of the world and small planes circle around doing their thing at Rochester. So, it’s not quiet but it’s my kind of noise.
My recent angst at all things human society have been calmed by the idea that even if we fuck it all up this planet of life will continue and something will stay here, alive and well. It could take a long time but maybe this planet will once again be an amazing world of life and beauty [beauty being a human property because of the way our brains work]. So, here are some photographs of this wonderful place. It might turn out that everything becomes forested again at some point. Wouldn’t that be great.
Kentish Country
The vineyard below won’t exist but something will be there.
I wasn’t feeling great on Thursday and ws mostly convinced that “preppers” had got the right idea. I’ve been more chilled out since but I did order a battery operated radio just in case it all goes to shit. I can’t decide if it was paranoia or just plain silly but I did. This is a really strange time and I just don’t know what is going to happen.
I ordered this thing from Amazon. It’s a perfectly functional battery operated radio.
I keep going from wanting to not write anything about all this to wanting to write a lot about this whole thing. I feel it should be documented somehow for me to look back over one day.
Our society wasn’t set up to cope with a massive short term change to the way it operates. By short term I mean in the order of months. We aren’t even months in and it feels as though the world is ending. There’s panic in the supermarkets and many many businesses are going to go bust. People won’t get paid and it’s not going to be pleasant.
If only our society hadn’t been chronically underfunded over the last ten years. If only the “gig-economy” wasn’t a thing. If only companies weren’t driven by responsibilities to shareholders but rather to a social responsibility that means they would look after their employees and make sure everyone had a decent standard of living.
We SHOULD be paying for goods and expecting everyone involved in those process to make them to be paid a FAIR wage. It is utterly immoral that they don’t.
This was meant to be the start of something big but I think I’ll have to leave it for a while. I might keep my ramblings short while we go through this.
Before all this madness I decided I would buy a new TV. I kinda figured that most screens are similar and so it was other features I wanted. I went for a 4K HDR screen [I’m not fussed about the sound, I have a separate system for that] and also Ambilight. Philips make TVs with the Ambilight system. There are LEDs around the back of the screen and they project colours onto the wall matching areas of the picture on the TV. This is what it looks like:
I do have some sound issues at the moment because my current amplifier won’t pass through 4K signals. I’m in the process of fixing that. But the screen and picture are great. The colours on the wall are pretty amazing. I did have the signal linked up to an LED strip but it was too overpowering! I had to turn that one off.
I love Gran Turismo. I have done since I lived in Chicago Avenue in Gillingham. My landlord borrowed a PlayStation from his brother and it had Gran Turismo. He and I would play this game and slowly over time I have gotten more and more into this particular game. I’ve owned every version.
The last few versions have had online gaming and I have a love hate relationship with the online version. Gran Turismo Sport has a vibrant online gaming community and I suspect there are people who race online all the time. I don’t get to see them often because my qualifying times aren’t that great.
Online racing is frustrating at times because I could get knocked off at a corner (or straight) and then I am pretty much in last place. The person who did the knocking will probably get a time penalty but my race is pretty much over. Also, there are times when I get knocked or hit into but then I receive the time penalty. This is what happened in the following clip. I was on the outside of the last corner of the Blue Moon Speedway when a black car rammed the car on the outside of him, then that second car rammed into me and I got a 1 second penalty. On a fast track like this 1s is a disaster and I can only pray for the whole front pack to take each other out to get any decent level of points.
In this clip my car is the dirty orange looking colour. I was racing closely with 9th place “YOUR-INFERIOR”, spelling please, I gave him room in the penultimate corner and then feathered the throttle going into the last corner. You will see 11th place “Golf_RalleyG60” come up the inside too fast and “lean” on “YOUR-INFERIOR” causing them to drift outwards and smack into me. In the second view you can see things from ” Golf_RalleyG60″‘s point of view with a reverse look to see me get my penalty.
Sometimes the racing is really good and there’s an unspoken gentlemen’s agreement as people race. Sometimes the race is full of assholes.
Yesterday I decided to head to the cinema although it was probably not the best idea to be in a room with lots of other people outside of my normal encounters. But still, I went. I do think was silly but because there’s so much going on in this country which is “normal” I don’t think the national psyche has changed to minimise the effects of the virus. I do think that our government aren’t doing enough, but I also think they are stupid and completely the wrong people to be in charge in a time of crisis. Try to think of who, in our current political system, you would trust to run this thing? I can only think of a couple: Lammy and Clarke. Polar opposites there I guess.
Anyway, back to the format. I made particular note of the tide as I drove along the riverside road because it’s important here. The tide was nearly highest and there were fishermen on the banks which was nice to see. I don’t think they’ll find any toilet roll in there though. On my return to home the tide was still pretty high or close to high tide and there were fishermen on the river banks near Peters Village also.
This film puzzled me and I eventually settled on a score on IMDB. There’s a rating system here. I then tweeted this result.
I had heard about this film from plenty of US based podcasts because stupid right wing christian people were freaking the fuck out about this. As far as I know the release was delayed. This sort of thing can only help the final outcome of a film. A little controversy goes a long way.
I think I need to write two reviews. Firstly if this film was written as a comedy and by centrist or left wing people then it is hilarious. It’s a funny look at the divisions in society and the idea that we should take revenge on those who disagree with us. This film takes the standard idea of a Battle Royale and places it in the USA with right-on lefty people hunting down right wing people who have loudly disagreed with the sorts of things that they do.
This film is the same as the Hunger Games or The Maze or any other future dystopian type film. It’s a fight to the death. It’s funny. I don’t think it’s clever or intelligent or sensible but it is funny. It’s also quite bright and cheery.
If this film was written by someone with right wing tendencies then it’s fucking terrible. If someone wrote this as though it was a real piece of work that might be true in the future then they need to chill the fuck out. It’s still funny. I still think it’s bright and cheery. But it shows a dark view into the mind of those on the right as if they think this could happen.
You know what? I enjoyed this film and I might even watch it again sometime. I suspect I will have to change the rating to an 8/10.
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge has died. I don’t often write about particular deaths on here because when you read those pieces it’s more of a shout by the writer about themselves rather than the person. This is going to be like that. I pretend it’s about Genesis Breyer P-Orridge but in reality I write about me.
I first came across Throbbing Gristle in the early 2000s. A friend talked about them and I was curious. So, I have some of their music. I listened to it. It hurt. But I liked just how different it was. Then I heard about COUM Transmissions and the ICA installation called Prostitution. When I read descriptions of that show I was fascinated and amazed at the same time. The undercurrents of sedition were real and the establishment didn’t like any of it. I do believe we can thank those early artists who “rebelled” for our liberties today. They planted the seed. The mold breakers have been there in most ages and they push the boundaries allowing people to feel more normal.
The ninety eight percent of you out there who fit the norm of our current society never have anything to fear except your normality being threatened. What you don’t realise is that the other two percent don’t share your views and want to be different and want to feel comfortable in their own skin. Those people with different feelings and needs should be listened to. They should be allowed to exist and feel normal because that is a basic human right.
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge kept pushing those boundaries to the end. I am sad they have died. I am also sad that as I grow older more of those who influenced me die. It’s inevitable and a reminder that one day I too will cease to exist.
Long live the boundary pushers, for the sake of all of us.
This headline from the BBC is amazing. I don’t even know what sort of spin they are trying to place on the news. I’ve been trying to spend less time BBC bashing when there is plenty more shit out there but this one needs a bit more explaining and it covers one of my favourite topics: the survival of the planet. It’s easy to go to the Daily Bullshit Mail and rip it apart. It’s easy to look at so many news articles and explain why they are wrong but it’s depressing when it’s the BBc that do it. As I’ve said many times within these communications the BBC is the best news gathering we have in this country and it’s going to be destroyed by the tories.
The use of quotations in headlines is terrible. It allows news organisations to drag you in with a juicy quote from a story without actually telling you anything about the story. Or, as in this case, it is misleading. The real news headline should have been:
Climate Change Report by Think Tank Released.
IP
What happened was a report was released. The headline the BBC used misses an important part of the report which said that the UK can’t go carbon neutral without changes to behaviour. That last bit swaps the whole style of the narrative around and makes the report more positive. It explains the headline. But most grumpy fuckers will read the headline, nod wisely as it agrees with their preconceptions, and then move on without actually learning anything. This headline gives the excuse that there’s no point changing behaviour because we can’t be carbon neutral by 2050. It’s an excuse to let people do what they are currently doing. It’s dangerous.
The UK cannot go climate neutral much before 2050 unless people stop flying and eating red meat almost completely, a report says. But it warns that the British public do not look ready to take such steps and substantially change their lifestyle.
From the BBC article
No one wants to change their behaviour because we don’t like change. But we MUST change and change soon. It is obvious we have destroyed this planet for the next ten generations and massive changes are required NOW to make sure that we minimise the terror. Currently we are breaking every possible system the planet has and we are going to make this place a horror movie in one hundred years or maybe even earlier. I guess we have to thank short-termism politics and the general selfishness of those who seek power and then want to maintain that power. It’s hard to imagine people who push their way to power actually wanting to help people. They do exist but are rare and seen as the odd ones.
I do sometimes think that maybe the best thing to happen to this planet is the extinction of our species. The planet will take a while to recover but it will eventually be a glorious place of life and death and the struggle to survive without our influence.
The weight of this world should be on all our shoulders. But I fear it is held by a few.
I’m listening to the radio as I write this and they are discussing the leading of petrol, the addition of tetraethyl lead, to help reduce knocking and also allow the fuel to run smoother. As science and others learnt that the lead was dangerous to humans and the environment many people fought back and said all the lead was natural. It wasn’t. But invested parties kept saying that the product was safe. They kept saying that they didn’t think their leaded petrol made any difference to the world. It’s one of those situations where you realise that companies and governments don’t do jack-shit for the people until forced to. It was DuPont who invented this. A side point – the chap who invented the leading of petrol was also responsible for the invention of CFCs – amazing.
I went to see Dark Waters at the Rochester Cinema which nestles next to the tidal part of the river Medway. I happened to notice that the tide level was very low. It was clear because of the mud banks being completely exposed and the rivulets were obvious. I did notice a shopping trolley in the mud and, had I had more time, I would have taken a photograph of it for this publication.
After seeing a film I then rate it on IMDB using a rating scale all of my own invention. You can read how that scale works on within this communication. I suspect that the rating for Dark Waters will be a surprise for some as I haven’t followed my system and am even considering changing my system to fit this score. I don’t want to see this film again but I really enjoyed it, that means it gets a 6 by default. But, I do think that all people should see this film and so I’ve decided to score it a 7.
I really enjoyed the film. It was very educational and full of anti-hope. This is one of those films that everyone needs to see and take on board all of the lessons of capitalism. Over the last ten years I have become more and more convinced that our capitalist governments aren’t doing the best for the people. They do the best for their own interests and it’s quite frustrating to realise that. Watch this film and try to defend DuPont. It’s a bit like watching The Big Short and then trying to defend capitalism. I am convinced that we need to change our society full-scale t omake it work for the people. To make it humanist.
I don’t think this government and management style is going to change peacefully. I think in two hundred years it will be different but largely because anthropogenic climate change will have ruined the planet and kills around eighty percent of humans. The remaining humans will be working to sustain what is left and priorities won’t be economic growth and making money. I’m hoping the priorities will be looking after the Earth and people. I’m glad I’ll be dead.
![Entertainment Corner [asymmetric]](http://fooyah.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/20200324_065658191_iOS-scaled-e1585033501534.jpg)
