CV-19 – Page 6 – Fooyah

May 21 2020May 21 2020

Safe

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.

May 19 2020May 19 2020

Laying Around

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.

Other sites about this place here:

May 12 2020June 13 2020

For Health

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.

May 8 2020May 8 2020

Testing

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.

My next communication might be about the UK Govt response to this crisis. But I’m not sure I’m willing to enter that pit of desperation yet.

May 6 2020May 6 2020

Pass It On

I decided last night it would be sensible to see what facts I can find out about this coronavirus that is spreading around the world. There are rumours of a relaxing of the lockdown and so finally I should learn what I can about the disease. Trying to find reliable sources might be tricky but I’ll spend around an hour and see what I can get.

Transmission Type

Data from published epidemiology and virologic studies provide evidence that COVID-19 is primarily transmitted from symptomatic people to others who are in close contact through respiratory droplets, by direct contact with infected persons, or by contact with contaminated objects and surfaces.

Incubation Period

It would appear that from first contact with the virus it takes a median of 5.1 days for symptoms to show. This means 50% of people will have symptoms before or by five days after infection and the other 50% after 5.1 days. Most people will show symptoms within the first 11 days of transmission. By most I mean around 97%.

Contagiousness

During the incubation period, also known as the “presymptomatic” period, some infected persons can be contagious. Therefore, transmission from a pre-symptomatic case can occur before symptom onset. It is possible that people infected with COVID-19 could transmit the virus before significant symptoms develop. It is important to recognise that pre-symptomatic transmission still requires the virus to be spread via infectious droplets or through touching contaminated surfaces.

A Harvard document has “reports” of people being infectious two days before symptoms start. This is not good and a reason for social distancing. LINK.

Asymptomatic Transmission

An asymptomatic laboratory-confirmed case is a person infected with COVID-19 who does not develop symptoms. Asymptomatic transmission refers to transmission of the virus from a person, who does not develop symptoms. There are few reports of laboratory confirmed cases who are truly asymptomatic, and to date, there has been no documented asymptomatic transmission. This does not exclude the possibility that it may occur. Asymptomatic cases have been reported as part of contact tracing efforts in some countries.

Testing

My current understanding is that testing for Covid-19 requires there to be virus in saliva and or snot. This means that you are likely to be showing symptoms as the virus has replicated enough in your body to affect your mucus membranes. So, if you get a test and it is negative there are some issues. Firstly, false negatives are possible and so the test might say NO but actually you have the disease. Also, you might not have enough of the virus yet so still have the disease but test negative. A positive test is more likely correct although there will be a false positive rate, this is likely much lower than the false-negative rate.

This is quite interesting because one of my standard lessons to Year 11 and also the sixth form is about this exact thing. Is a medical test good enough for use with the public looking at type 1 and type 2 errors.

Source Of Information

All of this information came from World Health Organisation reports from their excellent pages covering this disease.

I feel a little happier now that I have a good source for these facts and feel more confident that I know what I’m talking about. For me one of the saddest aspects of this is the fact that the WHO have to have a page dedicated to myths that are circulating the internet and discussions because largely people can be stupid. It doesn’t help that the US President is a fucking lying racist sexist moron and other leaders around the world are also stupid [Brazil and UK, also many more].

When this is over I hope there’s a bonfire of those leaders who did nothing for the two or three weeks when it was clear that Italy was fucked. It seemed obvious to me at that moment that we needed to shut the country down to save lives. It was ridiculous that I was expected to work in an environment of around 1500 people many of whom had returned from skiing holidays or similar. I just don’t think the leaders of many countries understand the following:

Exponential growth
Six degrees of separation
Combinatorics
Vectors of disease transmission
How to be nice and do the best you can for humanity

LLAP.

May 3 2020May 3 2020

Green

Yesterday while out for my allowance of daily exercise I noticed how lovely and green everywhere was looking. The sun and warmth over the last month – not a good thing by the way – has really helped the flora develop. Every path I walked on seemed lush and vert. Here’s a photograph I took while at one of the river Medway inlets, the old brickworks wharf.

Here’s a very nondescript satellite view of where the photograph was taken.

May 2 2020May 2 2020

Habits

Considering how much time at home I have at the moment you would think that I would be writing quite a lot on this site. I think I’ve just got out of the habit and the next album review is going to take some time so this is a communication make me feel as though I’ve actually done something positive. I’ve spent quite a bit of time sorting out the technology in the house over the last few weeks.

I have bought and installed a new PC including getting the software all transferred and working properly. I’ll put some pictures on here once it is finally complete. I’m waiting for some kit to arrive and I need to get out to collect the new desk for it. After that I’m sure I’ll put something on here about it. The new PC runs X-Plane a lot better than the old one so I’ve been playing on that a little recently.

I’ve been playing some Minecraft running my own server. It’s good fun and feels productive. I really enjoy the farming and mining aspect of this. The complex builds I leave to the kids. It’s a far better world than this one currently. To enable three of us to play in the house we are using the Bedrock edition along with playing on the PS4, PC and iPhone. The phone has a DS4 controller binded to it and then the video is output to the TV in the dining room. This whole system works quite well but when moving from one platform to another some of the button mapping is slightly different and this can cause issues.

I’ve also been playing Deliver Us The Moon on the PS4. I’m enjoying it. The puzzle solving isn’t that hard but there have been times I’ve wandered around trying to figure out what I am meant to do. I hope to finish this game over the next week or so.

Deliver Us The Moon
Lent Them Your Ears (Silver)
Collect all audiologs #PS4share https://t.co/s9Qv1RBjv6 pic.twitter.com/ia91J5HSZM
— Ian Parish (@iparish) May 1, 2020

Next week I’m going to get back to writing “music” on the PC. I’ve been practising recently trying to re-learn the things I last did about five years ago. I’ve also changed which software I use to one that seems a little more intuitive. Eventually I hope to write something that actually sounds good and fun. It’s hard because I nearly gave up at first before I remembered that everything is hard at first and the only way to get better at something is to do that thing. It’s something I say in my day job a lot and it’s nice to take my own advice!

I installed some security cameras in the house. Not really because I’m worried about crime but more because I can and they were on sale on Amazon. I do like that they alert me when there is movement in the frame and they also have a good night mode. What I’m less happy about is the auto-arming software needs to always run on my phone and I don’t like any piece of software that does that. This isn’t a problem at the moment because it’s not like I’m leaving the house that much. I’ll investigate more when I return to work.

I am working. From home. In a way that seems strange but I’m doing what I can and trying my best given the resources and limits that I have. I do hope everyone is safe and that’s the bigger issues really. I know I’m lucky to still be getting paid and I am making sure that is justified. I wish everyone well at the moment and understand that I come from a position of privilege completely on this. This current lockdown situation must be utter shit for a lot of people. I’m reasonably used to being away from work for the summer holidays and I have been thinking that the last summer I worked through was probably when I was nineteen in 1991. I have only ever had one job where the summer was just a normal work time.

I’ve been listening to podcasts while moving around the house and doing little things. I would normally have the radio on and listen to a radio station from New Orleans but their news is just as shit as ours and so now I’m trying to listen to more podcasts and that means just playing stuff through my phone during the day. Mind you, I can only concentrate on the podcast when I have certain brain functions going. While typing this I am listening to music, because I am doing words and so listening to conversation would confuse me more than I am currently. I’m listening to Amerikkkant by Ministry.

On to the habits. I need to change my habits slightly to make sure I add content to this site whenever possible. I’ve been away for a little while and I’ve been busy restoring this site along with setting up things on a new PC. Also, I’ve been trying to make sure that my back up systems work properly. There are routine things that I am working on to improve my site security and content. Here’s to new habits and enjoying the things we do along with being productive.

April 19 2020April 19 2020

Minor Tribulations

Yesterday my PC powered down completely unexpected. Not in a shut down type of way but in a dead kinda way. Now, I am slightly concerned by this. I’m not too worried about my data, I back up everything regularly and use a NAS and cloud based storage. My bigger concern is that I might need a new PC. I guess I could survive without one? Nope. Just spent a moment thinking about that and it is definitely something I would be unable to do. My phone doesn’t offer all the useability I would need and I can’t use my work laptop for home based stuff.

The questions now are what specification should I be looking at and do flashy LED colours add to my experience? What do I do with the current PC, which is working fine at the moment but I wouldn’t be surprised if it died for good. What peripherals do I get? Do I need another monitor? That answer is easy, I don’t. I’ve got plenty of screens in the house. It’s just a matter of being able to utilise them correctly. How am I going to pay for this is another thought I suppose?

I know what I’m like when buying big stuff. I get super excited and need to force myself to calm down and think about things. I need to consider all the options and then build up to a final decision. Also, it being lockdown and everything I probably need another little project to keep me going and I need a PC on which I can write “music”. I call it music, but it’s noise really and me messing around trying to emulate my favourite artists.

I may or may not update here what happens over the next little while. I’m off to do more googling around and seeing what the best deal I can find is.

April 17 2020April 17 2020

45 and Birthday

My first day of self isolation was one month ago. On the 17th March. The night before the government had announced that people whose household had someone with CV-19 symptoms had to self-isolate for two weeks. So, given my contact with my family I had to self-isolate. I was actually kinda happy to do this for a couple of reasons. Firstly, my mental health was starting to suffer with the inaction of our government over the previous three weeks – it was starting to feel as though senior members of the government didn’t understand how much people moved around and things like six degrees of separation along with incubation periods. Secondly, I can’t remember my second reason for happily being at home, probably because it would get me out of the hotbed of transmission which is a school where 1400 people gather and mix every day. Oh well. Time at home was probably needed to be honest.

As any fule know Gran Turismo gives you a bonus car on your birthday. I’ve a communication from 2014 for you. This year I waited with anticipation as I opened the game [after I had done my proper job work thing you understand]. I was happy! The game gave me a McLaren F1!

Not only that but the game also gave me a fireworks show to impress me a little more!

Around the same time I also passed into Level 45 territory. This is quite an achievement I think. I remember tweeting something about getting to level 40 before and then my save-game got corrupted and I lost all my cars. I had to start again. I now regularly backup my save-game files to a USB stick after checking how many cars are in my garage. It doesn’t seem like much I guess but I’ve got quite a time investment in this game and I would be sad if I lost everything again. I’d just start again but some of the challenges are quite hard work.

I also have a screen shot of my current game progress to share with you. This gives a rundown of all my statistics. Let’s give you the rundown:

Some things I am proud of [I think]:

18,600 miles driven!
Campaign 100%
Level 45
Days logged on 353

This is not to do with President of the USA number 45 because he’s a lying bullying racist cunt.

April 15 2020April 15 2020

Globe Master

This morning I was watching my MagicMirror and up popped a RRR callsign on the aircraft near me section. Well, it wasn’t near me but it was close because there aren’t really any aircraft out there at the moment as the world has gone to shit. I checked with 360 Radar and it looked as though this RAF Cargo flight would pass quite close. So I got the camera and headed out to the garden to see what I could get.

Here’s a cropped view, which looks a little better.

Also, because the weather’s been nice here’s a photo of one of the plants in the garden. It was taken by son #1 and is a pretty good shot.

April 9 2020April 9 2020

Star Washing

This communication is number 1669. In keeping with recent references to plague hit London in the 1600s I, again, give a brief rundown of things that happened in this year. Pepys stopped writing because his eyesight was failing much like Donald Pleasance in The Great Escape, Newton is appointed as a professor and Robert Boyle discovers phosphorus. Along with all that there was plenty of life and death as all those who played insignificant roles in society aren’t recorded.

In another day of discussing society with poorly constructed arguments and leaps of consciousness I will explain the brainwashing of our society to maintain the current social and political structure. I was out on a run yesterday, it’s where I do plenty of thinking while also listening to podcasts. Being in the open and feeling good, or at least healthy, or at least as though I am doing something healthy is really good for clearing the mind. I was thinking about how too many films and stories all cover this idea that we are born to a particular level in our society. These stories we hear and films we watch reinforce this subconscious acceptance of “our place in society”.

From Where Do We Get Authority?

At a basic level we all need to be told what to do and the best systems work when you respect that person telling you what to do. You want to know that the “manager” has the experience and understanding along with the intellectual capability to think deeply about how things work. You want the “manager” to be fair and allow you some freedom. You want someone who knows the job and has been appointed to that position because they have some capability or understanding or talent beyond what you have. If the “manager” is respected by the workers then they will do their jobs for that manager and the “manager” will look good because they have a good set of outcomes from their workers. Authority comes from the respect that the workers give the manager through the manager’s skills and experience. Have you ever worked for someone you don’t respect? You might do as you are told but it will be a miserable experience.

So, we want authority to come from someone/thing who understands better than the workers and someone/thing who is able to be supportive and responsive and understanding. If you have those qualities then maybe you should be a “manager”.

The Worst Case

In the worst possible case scenario you claim authority through some vague system which you also happen to run. You might be a good “manager” you might also be a shit “manager”. At the very worst level you claim authority through the idea that you have that job and are therefore better than everyone else. You convinced those who appointed you that you are fantastic where, in reality, you suck and are shit at managing. Your life will then become a series of constructions to create the results that mean you look great but you are also destroying everything in the process.

If you want ultimate authority over many people then you claim it was given to you by god. That way, if you run the religion, you also run the entire system of authority. In the UK pretty much everything is owned by the monarch [legally] because god says so. The ultimate authority is deferred to god via the queen because you can’t get a higher authority than the imaginary god. God is the ultimate scapegoat and giver of power. Look at the pope. Put there by a human voting system but is god’s representative on earth because “god”. It’s brilliant. It’s also terrible. If you have to claim authority by referring to some divine right or prophecy then you suck and should try fucking off. Which god? Whose god? Not mine. I don’t recognise your authority. Oh, by the way, I write this just after Cardinal Pell’s conviction was quashed by the Australian Supreme Court through “lack of evidence”. Fuck the pope and the catholic church – evil cabal of child rapists.

Top Down

If you want to claim authority over people you either do it through talent and skills or you claim intangible things which apparently give you provenance. So, you can claim that god speaks to you and only you and everyone needs to do as they are told. You can claim the authority through birthright [whatever the fuck that is in reality] or you can just shout louder than everyone else. We have this sense in our society that if you are born from the correct vagina and parentage that you are therefore more qualified than someone else to take the power. This is rather strange. It doesn’t follow. There have been so many family dynasties it would be impossible to list them here. But let’s look at one in particular.

The queen is the top person in our country. Why? Because she was born to it. She’s lived her life in “service” to the country and commonwealth. Why? Because she was born to the right father and mother [even that’s not needed as illegitimate people have power too if they grow up in the right environment]. But she’s been brilliant? Has she? How do we know that? How do we rate that? Isn’t against her human rights to be placed in this position before she entered this world screaming? The queen’s authority lies in her birth and the fact this in this constitutional theocratic monarchy god happens to have said so. She’s the leader of the state religion. What?

Most stories you heard as a child reinforce this idea of family being your station in society. You are successful and deserve respect if you come from the correct family. You are in servitude to those people if you are born elsewhere. Firstly, there’s god and his zombie son Jesus. The provenance comes from the seed of the father. The right to lead and to have the power comes from who your father is. The queen is who she is because of her father. We have hereditary Lords in this country for fuck’s sake. They are called Lord. The title passes on through birth. We fascinate over who our ancestors were. We have TV programmes about who you think you are where you can claim legitimacy from the history of your family. People seek out that link between them and long dead people of power because our society is so bought into this idea that who fucked who years ago is really important.

There are stories about adopted children really being from a dead family of aristocrats. There are stories of knights marrying princesses. There are stories of kings and queens and those with power having gained that through being accidentally born to the correct family. Why do you think the bible spends ages proving the ancestry of Jesus? He’s descended from David. Who was descended from . . . . I don’t actually know or give a shit, probably Abraham? Legitimacy comes from your parents, wrongfully. All of our culture is given over to being submissive to the wrong people based on DNA.

Stories

This was my original thought while having a run yesterday. I pondered the film series Star Wars. Now, I used to be a big Star Wars fan but managed to let go a few years after being upset at the prequel trilogy. But let’s look at the important parts:

Darth Vader – evil doer until a last minute recant – virgin birth. That’s the great thing about christianity, you can be as evil as you want as long as you seek forgiveness just before you die and accept jesus as the saviour. Having him divinely concepted was a stroke of genius
Royal Family – Leia was a princess born to a queen. Legitimacy from her mother.
Inherited – Luke gets his powers from his father. Has the right to be a leader through his birthright. Gets discovered and his “true” destiny is revealed. By the way, FUCK DESTINY.
Kylo Ren – gets his powers from his mother. He’s a royal. It’s his birthright.
Afterlife – if you are good enough you get to live forever as a ghost?
Rey – powers from her father/grandfather I can’t remember. Taken away from her family and finds the truth of her “birthright”.

Power is inherited through the family system. You can look at too many films and see this story played out again and again. All of this reinforces how society thinks. It shapes how we behave. How many films have you seen where the son or daughter claims their “birthright” and becomes the leader or manager? How often is this scenario played out in kids’ stories? How often do you reinforce this? Why? Try and think a little more about the things you see and read. Question how much of it is there to maintain the “structure” of society. Question those who defend the “systems”.

Think about why the following statements are required be be written down and whether you think they are true for your life?

Article 1 – All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2 – Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

etc.

If you read more on this you’ll start to see how everything works against you. Our current society doesn’t do the best for everyone. It exists to serve those who are born to the power. So, I am now officially one of those weirdo people who I was concerned about when I was younger. The type of person who thinks of society and sees a massive problem with the reinforcement of its structure. Time for a beer I think.

April 8 2020April 8 2020

Manifesto

This is communication 1666 including the album reviews and I’ve been starting recent rants with a list of things that happened in that year in England. I’m choosing England because that’s where I live and that The Act Of The Union hadn’t happened yet, maybe one day I’ll be writing about the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but not at the moment. In 1666 the royals returned to London as the plague subsided, the English won a victory against the Dutch in the war, the English also pillaged and destroyed loads of Dutch stuff at Terschelling. The Great Fire Of London happened. Newton split light using a prism, invents the cat flap and does more mathematics along with Leibniz.

While out running yesterday I became quite angry while thinking about what to keep writing within this site and decided I would try to list it all. I was trying to work out what things the state should provide its citizens. I’ve been trying to work with a general philosophy that the state while benefiting from its citizens should also do its best for those citizens. A bit like the biblical Golden Rule. My version of it is just to be nice. If you can’t be nice then don’t do or say anything. Also applicable is the rule “don’t be a dick”.

A lot of the following are things I think should be done. Some of them I don’t have very good arguments for I just think they are the correct thing to do. Some of these are surely controversial to some of you and I don’t care. It’s what I think.

Health

It seems rather obvious that if you want the best out of your citizens then you have health care that is free at the point of use. You also wouldn’t systematically aim to destroy that. Yes, I know that ultimately there has to be choices about where the money is spent and there needs to be a particular value placed on life, but a healthcare system is one of the main priorities for a state.

Education

If you want your state to be productive and to be good at things then you need education that is free at source. Where this free ends I think is after first degree level. People with degrees will eventually add so much back to the economy that it makes long term sense to offer this education as a right. Not everyone with a degree will use that particular degree but if you invest in the people they will return that in large quantities.

Slightly controversial I guess but I would remove all private schools. They breed class differences, they maintain the class system we live with in this country. If impossible to remove them I would remove their charitable status.

Transport

There should be much more public transport that is cheap at point of use. We must reduce reliance on fossil fuels. We need to slowly change society to undo the reliance on personal transport. The state should own and run all railways, buses and other forms of mass transport. There should be no more roads built. Goods should be moved by train, people should be moved by train, there need to be good links for all places to trains. I’m not convinced that the airline industry should be such. Given how fragile it is and the damage it does I think we need to slow this world down. And I fucking love aircraft. I just don’t think it’s a justified industry. I would provide massive investment to clean, green sea faring technologies. Things might take longer to get to places, but it would be better for all.

Utilities

If you need it to live then I think it should be state owned and run. So, water, electricity, gas [needs to be reduced], and, not controversially, broadband, should all be state run. It is insane that our power generation companies are owned by foreign governments, EDF etc. It’s amusing that EDF is known as EDF in this country but it is mostly French state owned. In the run for quick cash from the 1980s onwards we have allowed other governments and states to profit from the necessities of life in this country. Hilarious. We need massive investment into green power generation technologies so we can then sell them to the world. We need to be a leader in the world in reducing the effects of anthropogenic climate change but I fear we won’t ever be that because of the short termism of our current system.

Support

It seems clear that the state while asking of its people should also provide for those people. We should be looking after those who need support and help. We should be providing for those who can’t afford it. We should be an altruistic society. We should be willing to help those who struggle. I dare mention Universal Basic Income, but I do think that is the way forward. There is this idea that poor people are lazy and if they just got a job then they would be able to get out of poverty. Well, if you’ve ever read a book or listened to non-political experts about this you would know that is utter bollocks. Yes, some might be lazy and want to live on state handouts, but good luck to them I say. If you help people and want to do good for them they will return that. Fucking basic ain’t it?

Tax

Given the rest of this I’m probably going to surprise you all. I have come to think that removing the top tax rate in this country would be a good thing. I do not have any numbers to back this up just a feeling. Those who earn little need to pay less tax, we know that is the best thing, it makes sense. However, I’m not sure we should have a tax rate above the current 20% tax rate. I do think that many people who earn in the higher tax band are reluctant to pay that higher tax, it’s probably seen as “unfair”. I think they might have a point. I’d be tempted to remove that tax band but at the same time I would aggressively pursue people who still did their best to “minimise” their tax bill. If you want to be a part of our society then you fucking pay your dues. I do think that a flat 20% rate would go to improve tax payment by nearly everyone. I would also force through a way of paying tax in the country where your money is made. This is harder but the current system that allows companies and individuals to move money off-shore is utter bollocks. Pay your fucking taxes. There shouldn’t be billionaires. How grotesque. It’s seen as acceptable because everyone who dreams of being a billionaire would want to be in that position. It’s the “dream”. Fuck That Shit. If you think having 1,000 million is acceptable but 100 million isn’t then you are fucked.

Industry

We need to invest in our people and education. This will ultimately mean we improve our society and improve the “things we make”. We need to be aiming for what we can do for the world in twenty years. Some of this can come from guided research but we improve through having intellectual curiosity. It is impossible to know what area of research will provide what we need in the future. We must have a policy of academic curiosity. We must provide the environment where research can take place.

So, all of this is going to cost a lot. But it needs the investment now to provide the returns in twenty years. We need to start the cycle of investment and providing for our people so that we get the returns later. Once we start this cycle we can continue it with ease. We should be world leaders in all technologies and we should have a society where people want to live and feel safe and be supported. We should be looking after each other. We should be willing to accept smaller individual wealth at the upper end to the better of everyone. All of this seems quite clear to me. If there are other things I think about over the next while I may add them below:

April 7 2020April 7 2020

Economy what?

This is communication number 1665 and here’s a little run down of things that happened in England in that year. These snippets seem sensible given these are the years most people know about and the plague was also starting to spread. There was the start of a second war between the English and the Dutch. The monarchy moved out of London to avoid the plague. Peyps was busy writing. Newton was busy doing mathematics. Parliament moved out of London to avoid the plague because rich people have always had the means of saving themselves.

The last month has clearly shown that our economy isn’t fit for purpose. While I am happy to admit that this crisis is that, a crisis, and it is quite a rare event, the current situation is not a good one for the people. Who would have thought that the destruction of the unions and the rise of the gig economy would have had such profound effects on everybody’s well-being? [sarcasm]. For the last three hundred years there has been a constant struggle between those who want to make as much money as possible and those who are the ones who create that wealth through poor working conditions and threat to life. That seems quite extreme but let’s look at this.

The “working class” have always been treated as expendable. They are treated as though they don’t have value. The only value they have is that they can manufacture for the profit of others. This system has stemmed from the feudal system. There used to be Lords of the Land and “owners” who would have peasants who worked for them just for the right to live on that land. A single upper class person who just happened to be born out of the correct vagina had the power and owned everyone else. All the productivity was for this silver-spoon person. That person was in charge of it all and the structure of society continued. Now we have “industrialists” and also people born from the correct vaginas who still own or run everything. Our current Prime Minister went to Eton and Oxford. He’s been “bred” to rule the country. The rest of the country accepts this because “that is the way is has been”. There is a sad acceptance that these people are born to rule over us. We are still a monarchy and this “natural way of things” is forced into our collective consciousness through every system we have, including religion.

“Our Queen” still makes addresses to the “people” every Christmas, firmly linking her status with that of the god of all. Our fairy stories have princes and princesses along with Kings and Queens who rules over us. Our history forces us into this idea that the current Monarch is there for the good of the people. Every story about god and his zombie son means we subjugate ourselves to a thing which is naturally meant to rule over us. There is no meritocracy. There is only those who have and the rest of us. We like to think that they have our best interests at heart but do they? Bollocks.

Sorry, this is meant to be about the economy. I got side-tracked by those for whom the economy is really important – those in charge. If they worked for the people then they would be happy for more state control of the essentials. But they work for business and their friends. Let’s see the things that should not be:

Removal of a social safety net – there’s this idea that the working class are inherently lazy or that if they worked harder they could remove themselves from poverty. Read a study assholes. Poverty breeds poverty. Yes, some will scam the system but nowhere near much is lost to them as the many who currently “minimise their tax bill”. As a society we should want to help people. We should want to do the best we can.
Gig economy – this is clearly companies removing the need for paying their employees correctly or giving them workers’ rights. Only work for us when needed? Then we don’t have to give you all those pesky things that cut our profit and reduce our payout to shareholders.
Zero hour contracts – these aren’t contracts are they? If you only get work when they need you then it’s a bullshit system. Pay people and employ people properly. Give them benefits. You’ll get more out of them and create a better society. But when the bottom line is profit who cares?
Privately owned utilities – things that are essential to all should be run and controlled by the state. These things shouldn’t be in public ownership with those few who have money and the ability to buy shares to be the ones who profit. For instance, the railways in this country are subsidised by the government to the tune of billions, and those billions go to the shareholders when those companies make profit, which they only do because of the subsidy. Railways aren’t there to make money. They are there to enable people to get to work or move around effectively.
Dividends – I don’t mind people being able to run companies and I don’t mind profit being made but I do mind the short termism that comes from that. I do think there needs to be a social reality towards companies and the rewards, somehow, need to be based on what good they do as a whole, not just their bottom line. Do I know how to do this? No. Let’s take a minor look at that bastion of Britishness James Dyson. He’s so rich and successful that he’s been knighted [fuck the honours system] and he’s also so patriotic that he’s pro-Brexit and seen as a wonderful person. But he’s a shit. He moved all his production to the far east because it was cheaper and you can pay people less. He moved this for short term profit reasons rather than because he loves our country. I do not know his personal tax contributions but I will point out that JK Rowling pays her taxes in full. Those who have suffered and been poor know what help can be given although isn’t.
Short Termism – If companies had a longer cycle of profit and working then maybe a couple of months of shutdown would have fucked them over so much. The idea that they should save, pay decent wages, have good pension schemes and not raid those pension schemes seems beyond most companies.

I get that I seem angry at the capitalist society we have at the moment. I am. Think about the squalor, the working conditions, the living conditions that could be changed if companies acted responsibly towards their employees and not like the Lord Of The Manor who gives out all things. Thin what would happen if everyone got a decent wage and there was a decent safety net to help those who struggle. Think what would happen if we could improve the living conditions of everyone in this country. It wouldn’t take much. Then we could start on the rest of the world and show them the way. If you want to know why I’m angry think about this:

THERE ARE FOOD BANKS IN OUR COUNTRY

Oh, Tesco would love it if I bought an extra packet of pasta and put it in the food bank donation trolley wouldn’t they? Why the fuck are they still making a profit when they could be putting that entire profit, even for a couple of years, into society. They could start to end this. They could say to their investors, “look, we aren’t going to pay out for three years, we are going to put all the profit into local society and see what good we can change, we are going to pay a bit more to our staff and we are going to help these areas”. What an experiment that would be. Tesco would make more money because they are doing a good thing they are being socially responsible, they would be able to pay out more in dividends over a longer period of time, but reduce the initial dividends and lower the annual payout. I don’t mean to pick on Tesco but I when I see the donation box and I think of their profit I get angry. They trick us into donating our money when they could be using theirs to better ends.

Oddly the food supply system in this country seems to work well and I have yet to convince myself it should be taken into state control. We do need the state to legislate more for profits and forcing companies to pay better. We need the state to change things for the better. But they won’t because the “state” is made from those who were “born” to be there. They wouldn’t want you to have that power because in the last forty one years we’ve had right wing governments and unfortunately for us they want to keep the power.

Everyone laughed when Labour said they’d give everyone free broadband? It was cheap and brilliant. I bet all those who stand on their doors at 8pm on a Thursday clapping still vote tory in the next election. The sound of clapping causes me so much rage, like the donation box in Tesco. This country fucks itself over every election. I’m cheery honest, just need to stream this consciousness out somehow. I don’t think I’ll be reading these through either. It’s hard to get my thoughts in order on these matters.

April 6 2020April 6 2020

Too Little

This is communication number 1664 and so it seems worthwhile to point out some of the things that happened in the year 1664 C.E. The English took control of New Amsterdam and it was renamed New York. England had been through the Commonwealth and was now back as a Monarchy with Charles II in charge. Such a shame in some ways although the rule of Cromwell was horrific. This country has such a reliance on a feudal system even to this day. It is supposed that some people are “born to lead” and those people just happen to be born to the same families who have already led.

I keep trying to collect my thoughts on this current world of ours as we undergo such restrictions to try and slow the spread of the Covid-19 virus. Today I will stick with our government’s response I think rather than go on about the lasting political and social change that needs to happen.

From observations in China and countries in Europe it is clear the our current government lacked in it’s response to the virus. It’s like they don’t understand the terms “exponential” and “growth” even though it’s part of GCSE and A Level mathematics and I suspect it’s talked about in science lessons too. This country needs to remember that our government lacked action until way too late.

Firstly, everyone is going to get the current coronavirus. What’s important is reducing the number of people who have it at any one time. This way our [massively underfunded and ripped apart] NHS can do its be to cope with the onslaught. Once the virus started to spread from the far east, it was almost too late. That was the moment to shut down the country. Our bars/pubs and schools should have been shut TWO weeks before the government actually did it. You can’t wait for the deaths to start mounting before you shut everything down, most people will be infected by then. The way to control this thing is to know where it is and who has it. It is therefore vital that everyone is tested. That is another aspect of this disaster. If people with symptoms are tested then we will know whether they have the virus or not and we can isolate those who do. The others could return to their jobs and continue to help.

The spread of this virus will now continue at a massive rate because this government took too long to shut the country down. There are concerns with shutting the country down also, many families are awful places where violence and terror rule. People will die in their houses. There will be a cost to this isolation. This government is one ruled by money rather than believing in any form of social debt to those who make up this country. You can see that in the dedication the donors to the tory party have to the UK in refusing to pay the due taxes. They have trust funds and personal companies, they hide their money away to “reduce their tax bill” which is seen as “honorable” by some because it’s their money and they’ve earned it. Which isn’t true. They owe tax. They should pay tax. Their loyalty to this land is so shit they avoid doing what they should while maintaining a level of control which we, as a country, seem to forgive because of this feudal system that still plays on our minds.

Much like the classic Faderhead song goes “Take Your Fucking Meds”, we should have a chant across this land of “Pay Your Fucking Taxes”. I moved onto taxes as a way of symbolising the lack of respect our leaders and industry giants have for the systems of this country and the lack of caring they have for those of us in the lower echelons of society. They literally don’t care and that was why the response of the “leaders” of this country was entirely lacking in the early stages of this disease. If Johnson and the others ever let the report into this disaster public it will show their lack of action cost lives. Mind you, they haven’t released the report into Russian influence in the recent general elections have they? I wonder what they are hiding?

God, it annoys me sometimes how I come across as a complete paranoid loony left person. I think that’s what you feel when you grew up in the 80s when the left was seen as a joke and Thatcherism was at its height. It’s built into my psyche to be suspicious of those on the left, all those news articles and constant hints at communism in the 80s have messed me up and make me feel guilty for being on the left. But, I do know that I am right about it all.

April 5 2020April 5 2020

Done For Now – A Better Image

I forgot that I can output the Magic Mirror to a browser as long as I open that IP within the config file. So I can have on my TV using that built in browser, but it looks terrible. I can also run it on my PC in full screen mode and it looks pretty awesome. I wonder if someone has written a screensaver for it??

To see what the different modules are visit the previous communication.

April 3 2020April 3 2020

Done – For Now

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 — 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.

April 1 2020April 1 2020

I Like It – I Think

I have been playing around with the modules on screen in my Magic Mirror display and so far I have settled on this layout:

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!

March 31 2020April 29 2020

Black Magic Mirror – Day Fourteen

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.

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.

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.

March 28 2020March 28 2020

Angels Within

http://the-angels-within.co.uk/index.htm

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.