Tag: penguin

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Untruth

There’s been quite a bit of moral outrage recently at the Jeremy Kyle show and that it should be removed from television permanently. I haven’t really paid attention to what has happened, as I understand it someone died and the show has been stopped from broadcasting for a while. Newspapers and social media have been very loud about how the show should be pulled completely.

Why does it take something bad to happen for people to be open about what they think is right and wrong? All of this moral outrage wasn’t there two weeks ago when the Kyle show was still on television. There wasn’t anyone loudly calling for it to be stopped. It took the death of someone for the media to declare that they thought it was a bit shit all the time. They did fuck all for many years.

This is strange. This effect that it takes a large news cycle for the media and opinion makers to declare something as bad even though it’s been around for years. What sort of behaviour is this? Where was all the complaining before something terrible happened? I’ll tell  you what, it wasn’t bad enough for the media t give a shit, but that someone died before they spoke was terrible.

I have, in the past, watched a lot of Jeremy Kyle. I used to think it did some good. I thought that it helped people to talk to each other in a safe space when the rest of the world didn’t give a shit. It allowed the chance for people to communicate. I was probably wrong to think this. We shouldn’t forget that Kyle is a television show. It’s there to entertain and make money at a basic level and it probably did little to help its stars.

My biggest problem with the Kyle show was the use of a lie detector. Here was have a television show with a purported “helping people” theme and they relied on the utter bullshit that is a lie detector. The polygraph doesn’t work. It’s incredibly difficult to tell when people are lying. The TV show used the lie detector to try and solve family issues, people’s future relationships relied on the results of a flawed piece of equipment. Families will have been broken up because of the reliance on the polygraph and its results.

The idea that the show declared the truth or lies as fact was an appalling use of a bullshit piece of theatre – the polygraph. It doesn’t work. I guess the show tried to disclaimer the use of the detector with an on-screen caption saying that “it doesn’t work but some people believe it”. That’s what religion does. It’s horrific the hurt and separation using this device caused.

Do you know why polygraph results aren’t permitted in UK courts? It’s because they don’t work. It’s incredibly difficult for humans to tell when other humans are lying. I’ll let you into my reasoning.

Humans learn from toddler age that lying works. The individual will receive rewards for lying, as long as they can keep that lie going. Humans have spent their entire lives lying at times. This behaviour is learnt and used almost constantly. Little lies are easy. Larger lies are more difficult but they get easier with time. It’s amazingly easy to convince yourself that something happened when it didn’t. Human memory is terrible. Eye witnesses shouldn’t be allowed in courts but that is for another time.

I’ll give you an anecdote, which isn’t evidence, but it personalises the story and allows you to connect rather than just concentrate on the plain facts.

Years ago I ran over a pothole on a bend in the road near my village. The weather had been incredibly poor and there were potholes all over the place. The sudden compression on my left front suspension broke the spring and by the time I got to work the other spring had broken through excessive weight on it.

I tried to make a claim through the local council for the damage, claiming that the road was in poor condition. However, I didn’t want to take photographs in the road where the pothole was, it would not be safe to take measurements on that corner. So, I took photographs of a pothole just inside the village, it was of a similar size and depth and along a route that I drive. To ensure that, if questioned, I referred to the nearer pothole I kept going over the story in my head. I also visualised my driving the car over that pothole over and over. I talked through the story while walking the dog and basically formed a memory of me breaking the car by driving over the pothole near the village.

Even now, after more than ten years, if asked I would immediately respond that the pothole was in the village. I would then question myself and remember what had actually happened. With just a little understanding of human memory it is easy to adjust what we “know”. Memory is fascinating and terrible. Humans are terrible.

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Pokémon Detective Pikachu

Yesterday I went to watch the Pokémon Detective Pikachu movie at the Cineworld cinema in Rochester. As I drove along the wharf-side I noticed the phase of the tide and it was waxing, slightly more than half high-tide at that time.

I rated this film on IMDB and then tweeted the result. You should read this communication about the rating system, although I have been aware it is still flawed I don’t have the time currently to look into it.

So, I really enjoyed this film. Disregarding the megalomaniac aspect of it, this was what a film should be. There were so many multicultural touches that I’m not going to get them all. The cast were a mix of peoples from around the world. The cities looked marvelous and contained buildings from around the world. This whole film had a futuristic feel to it, the type of melange of the world which probably gives right-wingers the cold sweats.

The Pokémon were cool. They were realistic enough to make it all believable. The story wasn’t great, but overall this film just hit the spot in a world polarised by the politics of hate.

I enjoyed this film and I dare you to too.

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It’s Dying

We all need distractions I guess and maybe laughing at the poor on the Jeremy Kyle show was one of those. It was a way to feel better about ourselves, a way of looking at people who suffer and try but ultimately are just a passing fad for those of us who are OK at the moment, thank you very much.

Perhaps that’s why people watch bollocks like Eastenders and other soap operas where everything happens to everyone because if everyone tried to get along and be nice to each other it wouldn’t be worth watching and it wouldn’t provide escapism.

I’m certainly clear in my head about why I like science fiction. It’s nerdy and requires a little science knowledge but space type stuff often provides a glorious distraction to the mundane. It gives me the chance to live elsewhere and think about the implications of travel and technology that won’t happen in my lifetime.

In reality it’s all fucked isn’t it? Brexit, politics, the planet, it’s fucked. It’s dying. The single GREATEST threat to the human population wherever you live at the moment is the fact that the world is on fire. It’s really depressing. I’m hoping I’m dead before the Water Wars start. They are going to be terrible.

All those politicians worried about maintaining power and trying to get your vote using short-term gains and short-term give-aways. Not one of them is standing up for the planet. We need RADICAL change to society and how everything works. We need to save this planet. I’m not normally pessimistic about things but the planet is dying through human abuse and it’s going to kick us the fuck back and quite rightly too.

I’m scared for the future of my children and the fears that they will face as they get older. I’m scared for my unborn descendants because it’s all going to be shit. Take a look around the world and see where the action is to provide a future for people on this planet. It’s not there. Consumption-capitalism is driving this world to ruin while at the same time killing those who are poor and have little. It’s disgusting. We should be promoting a social-environmental-capitalism. Governments need to incentivise social and environmental good-doing.

It’s not like this is new. We’ve known about climate change and carbon emissions for over forty years. NOT a thing has been done in my life time that will drastically alter the way the planet is going to react. It’s all a nightmare. I’m not sure humans are mature enough to do anything about it either. I’m hoping that the generation after me, once they assume power when the baby boomers and generation X die off can cope and end up being nice to each other and working to create an Earth for the future.

I see the newer generation of politicians kicking back against the obscene capitalism of the last one hundred years and are now talking about social responsibilities and they seem to be speaking a more gentle kind of politics trying to go after the aging fuckers who have taken everything they can and created personal wealth beyond necessity. Here’s hoping that people like AOC can start to change the world to actual care about each other.

In the mean time the Daily Mail and other institutions that gain their power from the want and blinkered view of the older generations print articles implying that solar farms are wrong and will ruin your view.

A "News" Article
A “News” Article

The headline should have been “locals fight planet saving solar farm (stupid cunts)”. But then the exact people fighting this farm and the ones who read the Mail because they are all old and white. Fuck the Mail.

More amusingly, in thirty years the Hardy countryside won’t look like that at all because the climate will have changed so much it’ll be barren and all the locals will have died of malaria.

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HHOM

Just got back from a lovely weekend being trained in quite specific skills to do with a particular system. I was billeted at Halton House Officers’ Mess and I am glad the course changed from RAF Wittering to RAF Halton. I hadn’t stayed or seen Halton House before Friday and I was slightly worried I’d never get to see it as Halton might be shutting down.

Halton House Officers' Mess
Halton House Officers’ Mess

The light was pretty good when I arrived and you can see that in the picture. I try not to use filters as I think that’s cheating, unless there is a very specific effect you are going for. The above picture is filter-less, just aperture adjustments. I was given Room 8. This looked out over the main balcony.

The Salon
The Salon

The Salon, above, is the main hall but we don’t call halls halls anymore. In this particular picture my room was in the top right hand part of the balcony. It was such an amazing place to stay and I took photographs of every room.

The Staircase
The Staircase

The staircase has one of the best rise/step ratios I have seen and it is perfect for people in flowing dresses. I should have taken one with me and glided down this artifact. The house was bought by the air ministry after one of the Rothschilds didn’t want it and sold it at auction. It’s a lovely place and one I can tick off my list of great places to visit that are quite difficult as a member of the public.

The house has been used in numerous films, even a Bond film, and you can see a list on Wikipedia.

My Window
My Window is one of these
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K Qual

I just spent a weekend of good fun at a training camp near Folkestone. I was on my K qualification it involved spending some time at the Hythe Ranges run by the Defence Infrastructure Organisation and they are part of the Defence Training Estate. According to the DTE website:

An area of low lying, slightly undulating land adjoining the foreshore. Hythe Ranges is one of the oldest ranges in the country and has been used for live firing for nearly 200 years. The whole area is steeped in military history. There are two Martello Towers on Hythe Ranges, and a “Grand Redoubt” fortification at Dymchurch. These were built in the early 1800s to resist potential invasion by Napoleon.

On the Saturday there the weather was somewhat changeable! We had moments of delightfully warm sunshine and a few minutes later we were in a hail storm. We had to do our job in all weathers because there’s only so much time you can be booked onto the range.

Hythe Ranges
Hythe Ranges

I love the clouds and colours in this picture, the light was stunning. In this picture you can see the bullet catcher, one of the Napoleonic Martello Towers and in the bottom left there is part of a Hythe Frame. The Hythe Frame is used to raise and lower targets on the shooting range. It is a manual device and I really enjoyed using it although the sound of bullets passing overhead was a little disconcerting.

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Avengers: End Game

I went to see End Game. At Rochester. The tide was middling and I don’t know whether it was ebbing or flooding. At the time I was more concerned with trying to get through the whole three hours of movie that I was feeling quite “meh” about.

Here’s the “view” from where I parked my car.

Three Medway Bridges
Three Medway Bridges

I rated the film on IMDB and there’s a communication here that explains the scoring system. I then shared my score through Twitter. That private platform that allows a worldwide voice to everyone, even racists and Nazis.

So, what did I think? Mostly I thought it was fine. It wasn’t a terrible movie and it wasn’t good. It was middling. A perfectly acceptable film.

The movie goes DEPRESSED MOODY, CLEVER MOODY, SUCCESS MOODY and finally AHHH THAT’S NICE MOODY.

I didn’t think it was brilliant and I didn’t think it was shit. It was OK.

There are going to be spoilers ahead so take care here:

Thanos is right. The universe’s population should be cut to save the world from human consumption. I’m a dedicated follower of Malthus on this matter. The problem is that Thanos doesn’t understand exponential growth. Halving the population doesn’t stop the inevitable over-population from happening. It just delays it for a while.

In 1968 the Earth’s population was 3.5 billion. In 2011 it was 7 billion. It took just 33 years for the human population to double. Thanos gained Earth thirty seven years, that doesn’t seem a huge gain for all the effort he took. I reject the proposition. The previous doubling took about sixty years, Thanos is stupid [or has poor advisors].

I don’t like the way that Super Heroes use their fists to solve all problems. I get it, I honestly do, superheroes are there to push the American dream and hope. They are there to show that you can have these things if you work hard and use your fists to solve problems. There wasn’t a montage of people talking in committee trying to solve stuff or using the brains of clever people to solve stuff.

Yes, there is Tony Stark but he’s an egotist and uses his computer to model the time travel thing. An “inverse mobius strip” ha fucking ha. Sciencey words to make us seem cool. If there are so many issues surrounding time travel then I don’t think you would be able to solve it in the dining room of your house. What shit.

Why didn’t someone take the Infinity Gauntlet at the end and wish for Stark and Natasha to come back to life? Why didn’t they cure pain and suffering? Why didn’t they fix EVERYTHING?

There were too many characters at times, especially towards the end, for me to keep track. I didn’t mind so much, they all turned up and I suppose you have to have that.

I DID like all the women turning up at the end to protect the gauntlet. Strong women doing good things. There needs to be more of that in cinema. We can change the world for the better with positive roles for women and the oppressed. I’m very much looking forward to a black Captain America, this is how things should be. Those commies and pinkos in Hollywood telling the world how society should be. Women empowered and minorities treated with respect.

Look, this film was fine.

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The Truth

It’s wrong to lie.

It’s your honour.

These are both slightly different ways of saying the same thing I think. We expect people to be honourable and largely I think that means that actions should match the words that people say. We expect people to essentially tell the truth, to speak words which are not false.

I’d considered this a lot over my life. What is “honour”? What does it mean to be honourable? How can we measure this aspect of life? I spent quite a while thinking about it from a religious point of view. People have died for what they say they believe. People have been tortured and not rescinded their stated views about which god or set of beliefs is theirs.

I don’t entirely understand that. I think that is because I have a level of un-belief beyond most. I don’t believe that god is real and therefore it doesn’t matter what you say about it. It doesn’t matter what magic spell you whisper before you go to bed, none of it will do a thing. If I was required to, I would lie about my belief to continue living, but ultimately I know that doesn’t matter. St. Peter isn’t going to be waiting for me to tell me I fucked up by lying about my belief.

However, we expect people to be honourable. We expect people to tell the truth. If we are to accept what people are then we need that level of trust that we see them how they really are. Which means the truth.

If you want to be in a relationship, whether friendship or romantic, then it’s likely there needs to be truth for the relationship to be trustworthy. For partner A to rely on B a level of trust needs to be developed, this requires actions to match up with words that are said [I think I’ve just sold the religion issue I mentioned earlier, I have to relationship with religion or god and so don’t care].

How can you trust someone who constantly lies or rebuts you with little lies?

[An aside on little lies – we all make little lies. Lying is a very early trait of humans that is learnt. People are remarkably good a lying. It’s why it’s hard to tell if someone is lying or not. NEWS ALERT – LIE DETECTORS DON’T WORK.]

So, lying. Little lies are things that make life a little more comfortable and seem to have few side effects. We use these constantly as people to make our lives a little easier each day. It’s easy. It’s learnt behaviour.

Proper lies are a different matter. How can you trust a person who lies about things that matter?

[Another aside – “things that matter” is a continuum and and the level of consequence will be different for different people.]

You can’t develop trust if someone lies about what they said or what their actions were or what happened. Without trust you don’t have a relationship. These had been my thoughts until about three years ago. I’d been bemused by the idea of honour because I thought about it mostly framed within the religion question.

So let’s talk about politicians.

We now have world leaders who lie. Blatantly.

We have always expected politicians to be slimy bastards. We have always know that politicians or other people in power are expected to do things and then try to explain what they did in the slipperiest terms so that the “spin” is that they look good. We have always expected politicians to not lie. I don’t think we expected them to tell the truth all the time but we don’t expect them to lie. We expect them to squirm their way around the issues and leave the question unanswered while they sit in the knowledge that they “got away with that one”.

We have always a vague level of honour amongst politicians that at least they wouldn’t outright lie. They might skirt the issue but, when pressed, they would be “honourable”. That’s why in the past politicians would resign straight away from their government post if they were caught lying. They would understand that the measure of trust has been reduced to zero with those lies. They would resign as a politician though, of course not, they’d still be selected by their local party because people are stupid.

Then you get tow main things in the western world.

TRUMP

BREXIT

The vote for Brexit was based on lies and influence from foreign agents. Even when caught out politicians like Gove and Johnson just carry on. They haven’t resigned. They haven’t apologised for the lies they told. They are still in their jobs and still in power. The level of trust between the public and those politicians and politicians in general has been eroded because of the lies told and still being told by the pro-Brexit groups.

Trump lies. All the time. Demonstrably. He’s also a racist, white supremacist. However, he lies. Constantly. How can there be a level of trust with this man? It doesn’t matter what he says because he’s lying or doubling down and his actions don’t match his words. There is still a massive industry of news in the USA and the world that hangs on his every word because of his position of power in the world. Yet, he lies. There can be no trust.

The way to hurt Trump the most would be to remove the press corps from him. To remove him entirely from the news cycle, except for Fox news I guess, that would hurt the narcissistic orange man-baby.

What’s worse is that his approval ratings are STILL HOVERING AT ABOUT 40%. It’s clear that some of the public don’t care about what he says or that he’s lying. They just know he’s “their man”. Fuck This Shit.

Also, those local party selection committees, for Gove and Johnson and all the others who have blatantly lied, they keep electing those lying arses to represent their constituency in parliament. Those people are selfish fuckers but I think I shall leave my derision for them for another day.

It’s only when things mess up that you realise just how good things were for you I think. I don’t think the Blair/Obama governments were perfect but it is quite clear that they were better than the world leaders we have today. Man, this world is depressing at the moment.

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Sundays

I woke up this morning with a mild worry that I hadn’t added to these communications for a while. I then thought about a really easy one to write, it wouldn’t take a huge effort and required no pictures or special formatting. Then, as I approached the computer, I forgot entirely what it was I was going to write about.

Anyway, I’m missing American Football loads at the moment. Some people have talked to be about it and I suddenly realised that there hasn’t been any NFL since early February and I’m bored. I’m very much looking to August when the pre-season starts.

There was a power cut in the village and it turned out that we were being electricitised from mobile generated burning diesel fuel and being quiet but pretty loud if you lived nearby, at least the sound was a constant thrum rather than anything that swells and dips.

MEMS Power Services
MEMS Power Services

The power is back on now and I even had a text from the power company telling me there was going to be a short break in the power supply. I was out, which isn’t much use, because there are certain elements in my house that like to be powered down properly. The PS4, the NAS Drive and the PC all moaned at me about not being powered down correctly. At least the Pi seems un-bothered by it all. Also, IP acquisition from the router can be iffy sometimes on a power up, the SONOS system has issues occasionally.

I bought some Bic 4 coloured pens. I think I’ve come around to the idea that four colours in one pen is incredibly useful, especially when doing work-trips and cadet stuff. It’s got absolutely nothing to do with me spotting pilots using them while I was at RAF Wittering recently.

I bought a board game called They Come Unseen. It’s a strategy game where you either play a submarine commander or a soviet bad guy. I’ve not played it yet, but am looking froward to doing so. I’ll probably do it in a few years, it’d be quite a cool thing to do with some CCF staff on a camp, but I suspect they won’t be up for it.

The first box that came with They Come Unseen had parts missing which was quite a surprise so I let Amazon know and they posted a complete version to me the next day and it was easy to send the original one back.

I really want to go to the Royal International Air Tattoo. I’ve never been and I think it will rival an 80s Mildenhall airshow for experience.

Will I go and see End Game? That is quite a question. I find I don’t really care about the MCU but I suppose I will go and finish the story.

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Being Dutiful

A short while back I finished watching the television series called “Tour Of Duty“. There were three seasons and I enjoyed all of them. I thought it was well acted and well written. It was a good series to watch. It also reminded me of watching it while I was at university but I doubt I watched the whole series back then.

I really did spend some time worrying about what to watch next. It seems weird to settle down in front of the television and not know what to watch and as I have got rid of all live decoding equipment I must have something that I intend to watch, I can’t just scan through the channels until I find something to numb the mind. I would probably find this an annoying waste. I try to make sure that my time is employed productively and staring at something I don’t care about would bug me.

I’ve got Brooklyn 99 on the go as a kind of filler, it’s about 25 minutes and so is easy to watch now and then when I want to fill some time. But I needed something serious to watch as well. I spent two years watching Babylon 5 and enjoyed it all. I’m kinda watching Star Trek Voyager on Netflix but only now and then when I want something else to watch. I might spend the next few years working through all of the Star Trek stuff, that should be fun.

While I was out for a run about a week ago I listened to Skeptics With A K, a Merseyside based podcast about science and skepticism, and Marsh mentioned the early 2000s series Farscape as an alternative to watch while Dr Who was off the air. Some other shows were mentioned but that struck a chord with me and I was desperate to remember that series to search for it once I got home.

Farscape reminds me of watching the television when I lived in Brentwood. I shared a house with some other reprobates and I think we got a digital TV box which was quite exciting back in the day. The actual house was horrible, there was a split down the entire front centre of the house and the windows in my bedroom didn’t shut properly which is fine in the summer but I had two duvets and extra blankets over me in the winter. I think I lived there just over a year before I moved back to Kent.

Anyway, when I remember Farscape I remember the lounge in that house and the people I lived with. Well, I can remember two of them particularly but some others I can’t even remember faces. I worked not far away in Brentwood at the time and our immediate neighbour was a pupil of mine.

Anyway, I have found Farscape on Amazon Prime and have started to work my way through that television series. I am enjoying it so far. When it premiered I remember it being hailed as an Australian series with Jim Henson puppets and the market was definitely there.

There are four seasons and a spin-off series I think. Let’s see how long it takes me to get through this!

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Our Lady

So a church caught fire and burnt.

I have to say I watched and listened quite unpassionately. It seemed slightly sad that such a building could burn but then that is a risk with everything the human race has built. Fire is one of the greatest everyday risks to human life and property. It’s why we buy fire alarms. It’s where the poor go to live and then get caught up in greed:

I’m sickened by the speed at which there has been a rush to donate and offer help to a building built to honour a god that doesn’t exist when compared to the problems faced by poor scum and black people who lived and died in the tower at Grenfell.

The systematic oppression of people in this country is so advanced that we/they don’t even notice it. All through history the poor and workers have been abused by those with money to increase the amount of money the wealthy have. It’s such a process of oppression that we even love TV shows and films which reinforce the idea of status and place in society. If you aren’t angered by the donations to a fucking church then you lack empathy.

My current thesis about British society is that those who lack empathy tend to be tories and end up in power largely because they don’t care and can’t care about others because they lack empathy. You would think it’s not that hard to want to care for others and want to help those who are less fortunate than yourself but just look at the state of UK politics over the last thousand years. The people have fought for everything they have got and yet there is still so far to go.

The Vote. Workers’ rights. National minimum wage. Guaranteed holidays. Health care. Food.

All of these things were fought for. They weren’t given to the people. Those in charge don’t “give” things to us. We have to fight for them.

I am convinced it’s time for a new revolution. A new form of government to do the best for people. A new form of responsible capitalism that doesn’t ruin the planet and force mass consumerism. We are killing this planet and killing ourselves. They don’t care about the rest of us, they care about themselves.

I don’t care about the church. It’s fucked over so many people for its entire existence. I care about the people and looking after each other. Let’s put the money where it should be.

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War Machinery

Took a few hours out of the busy schedule the other day to visit the Historic Dockyard at Chatham. This is one of the places this country built and serviced warships for over four hundred years. I found the positive spin put on it all in the introduction video to be full of cognitive dissonance but I guess that’s how it goes. It was rather “Great Britain ruled the seas and controlled the world” it was kinda a Brexiteer’s wet dream with promises of glory and power. It completely ignored the human aspects and damage this country has done around the world. Anyway, enough from this old lefty, let’s have some pictures.

Smithery No. 1
Smithery No. 1

I like the way the light enters this room. It’s part of a building that contained the first smithery. There were a few buildings like this where all the metal work was completed. It’s quite impressive.

Ocelot
Ocelot

HMS Ocelot is a spy submarine and the last Royal Navy ship to be built at Chatham [they built more afterwards, but for other countries’ navies]. It’s quite impressive being given a tour around this beast. I think I’d love to see a more modern submarine, the whole concept of living under the sea is rather freaky.

Cavalier
Cavalier

HMS Cavalier is a destroyer now permanently moored in wet-dock at Chatham. I would have liked to have seen the engine rooms and murkier areas of the ship, but that would probably need specialised tour guides and so this one is a self tour.

It’s a great place to visit and I have been here a few times in the past. I’m not sure if I’ve written about it before though. I’ll go and have a look! well, my cursory search has highlighted no references within this website to the dockyard, that seems strange but there you go. This is the first. It’s a lovely day out.

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Aesthetic Perfection – O2 Islington

Last night I went to the O2 Academy in Islington with my niece to see Aesthetic Perfection. We drove into town as it just makes it easier to get home and not worry about running to get the last train. After arriving we had burritos for dinner and then headed to the venue.

Machine Rox were playing, this was a slight surprise as they weren’t on the bill as far as I knew but we watched them anyway.

Machine Rox
Machine Rox

I didn’t mind them. The singer owned the dress she was wearing and that was excellent. I couldn’t understand what she was singing though and that seems to be a bit of a flaw. The drummer doesn’t really do much and the guitarist is pretty cool in his silver outfit and lights on his head. They were OK.

Next up was Amelia Arsenic. I hadn’t heard of her before this series of concerts and so was curious. She came on stage and explained that her band were stuck in Cincinnati and she’d been hit by a car the day before. She had a computer set up to play the music and her performance was really good. I could understand what she was singing and really enjoyed the show.

Amelia Arsenic
Amelia Arsenic

I can’t remember how many tracks she sang but I was impressed. On my next pay day I think I’ll be buying some of her work. I don’t think there are enough female artists in this genre and it’s good to see more. She had a wonderful confidence and even came and sang the last verse in the crowd.

Priest were up next. I’m still not sure what to make of this band. I enjoyed it for a while and his signing impressed me but the songs didn’t vary much and were built around his seemingly classically trained voice. I thought I detected a slight French accent but I may have been wrong there. Apart from the outfits there didn’t seem to be much going on stage.

Priest
Priest

I’ve just checked and the band are from Sweden, so that explains why I thought they were French. I did like that the singer called themselves:

The Cybernetic Trinity known as Priest

It was a nice touch. I don’t think I’d need to see more of them though.

The headliners were Aesthetic Perfection. I’ve seen this band a few times and have always enjoyed the show. They were the second EBM type band that I started listening to and so are one of my original favourites along with Combichrist. Also, now that Joe Letz plays with AP I think that means I have seen him perform more times than any other musician.

Aesthetic Perfection
Aesthetic Perfection

I was curious to see how the band handled the new guitar influences on the new album but the keyboardist played the guitar on two songs and I think it worked. I like the new album a lot and so to hear the songs live was very exciting.

The band played a solid set and it was very enjoyable. It’s nice to be part of a crowd that really sings along and joins in. These guys are excellent showmen and the addition of Joe Letz brings the album sounds to life. I always think that live drummers add more to the sound than they cost. I really like it when electronic bands do that.

Classic Guitar Pose
Classic Guitar Pose

This gig was good fun and I enjoyed it immensely. AP are still one of my favourite bands and I will continue to see them when they come over. A good solid evening of music.

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Pet Sematary

I’m having a cup of Earl Grey tea as I write this because for some reason I want Earl Grey tea. I’m not sure why but I had to go and buy a box of tea bags just to satisfy this craving.

This afternoon I went to the cinema at Rochester, the Cineworld one, the one I always go to, and I watched another horror film. I’ve a number of things I want to talk about here but first there are some formalities to get through. The tide was quite low and I did’t take a photograph this time but I did look at the lovely murky water as it journeyed past to the Thames Estuary.

I also rated this film on IMDB. I then used the app feature to share my opinion with the world because I know the world wants to know what I think.

So, the things I want to say are in broadly two themes. The first is what I thought of the film the other is why I think I dislike horror movies.

I haven’t read the book and I haven’t seen any other film version. So, this film was a bit shit. But that might because of what I write in the next paragraph. My issues are the following:

  • IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH A PET CEMETERY. A cat nearly gets buried there. That’s it. All the rest of the action happens upon a special fucking hill which people only go and visit when it’s night time because otherwise they’d see it’s just a hill. WITH STEPS. This place you aren’t meant to go has STEPS.
  • This is surely a love story? The ending seemed perfect for a sort of “let’s get together” type of film. I’m not sure I was meant to empathise with  anyone, I didn’t really. I did like John Lithgow though, it’s hard not to.
  • A cat being evil isn’t a surprise. We all know they can be evil fuckers. It didn’t really seem that evil in the end. It just scratched someone.
  • They did kill a kid and well done to the film makers.
  • Trees aren’t scary.

While I was watching this film I was trying to work out why I don’t enjoy horror movies. It’s not like when I was a young teenager and I saw loads of classics and each one affected me quite a bit back then:

  • The Omen (all parts)
  • Poltergeist
  • Amityville
  • And probably a few others

I think I struggle with these themes now because I don’t believe in any form of soul or afterlife. I don’t believe in anything after death. There’s no evidence and all religions which offer the afterlife are cons.

I am subject to jumps and foreboding but I think in horror films it’s not done subtly enough for me. It’s obvious when there’s going to be a pop-scare. The music seems too leading, I guess these slasher flicks seem to grate rather than entertain. I mean, if you lived in this sort of universe you’d fix up all lights and basement rooms during the day time and make sure everything worked well in the house. Who’d walk around a house in the dark when they hear the noises of the undead?

Do you know what I watched last night that was better than the last two films I saw at the cinema:

UNDER SIEGE

It was amazing. I enjoyed every minute of it and I have every time I’ve watched it since seeing it at the cinema in 1992. There might be too many bullets in each magazine but as films go it is great fun. Well done to those who made it. It still works well twenty seven years later [it hurt writing those numbers]. Except Steven Seagal is clearly a nutter now.

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Soulless

I went for a walk through Maidstone yesterday and happened to have a cup of tea at the cafe in the House Of Fraser store at one end of the Fremlin Walk shopping experience. The following photograph was taken through a window while sitting and drinking.

Fremlin Walk
Fremlin Walk

Upon initial inspection the place seems nice and pretty but when you gaze for longer you can see how horrible and soulless the design is. All the buildings are the same, the colours are all pastel shades meant to compliment each other and the trees are evenly spaced. The place has no soul. It has no organic-randomness. It’s a designed space and I think it looks horrible.

Towns are organic growing places where new buildings should have purpose and style along with individuality. We shouldn’t have everything looking the same, it should be interesting and varied. Too much order is a bad thing, although you could argue it is very efficient but at the same time it lacks a certain quality.

Places like this don’t looked lived-in. They look forced. I shall go and find some contrasting pictures over the next week to continue my thesis. I’ve got some ideas of where to go.

Sky
Sky

This view was quite nice [note the lack of buildings though] although I missed getting the best symmetry. Maybe I should return to try again?

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Lego 66 – Magazine Kits

Here’s another couple of Lego models for me to catalogue. These came attached to one of those magazines that cost around GBP5. But I think the models look quite cool.

Dwarf Spider Droid micro edition
Dwarf Spider Droid micro edition
U-Wing micro edition
U-Wing micro edition

It’s probable that the U-Wing is part of the rebellion against the established government of the galaxy. If we use a neo-con view of the world then we would probably think they are rebel scum, all those terrible people fighting for the rights of everyone. Could it be that they are the bad side?

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Not A Neo Con

I found an advert which, I think, lies! I was looking through the newspaper that my parents read and I found the advert below. Now, let me first explain that I do not agree with the “news”paper that my parents read and given my personal politics it stresses me that they still get this heap of shit delivered to their door. I have offered to pay for a different paper but they have refused. I’m not sure why they still read the Express but it is a vile piece of work.

What A Con
What A Con

This advert is along the lines of what started me into this skeptical hole in the first place. Originally my father gave me a magnet that surround the fuel line in a car and then magically makes the car engine more efficient. I’ve written about it here. At first glance it seems reasonable that something might increase the fuel efficiency of an engine, but if it’s that simple don’t you think the manufacturers would do it anyway?

I wrote about a fuel chip I saw advertised in a motorcycle magazine here. It seems that this device is making very similar claims. Notice that if you want, you can get your money back if you aren’t happy with the results. This is a classic scam because no-one cares enough to ask for their money back.

Having looked at the website in this advert and the one for tank chip they both are in association with the same company.

Hamilton Direct

This company is based in Paignton in Devon. They seem to peddle a lot of bullshit. Don’t buy anything from them.

The bike insurance people Bennetts did a proper testing regime on the tank chip and they found it makes no difference. You can see their results here: Bennetts.

If the product seems to good to be true then the chances are that it is.

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An Avatar

I’ll probably mess around and update this one soon, but this is my current Gran Turismo driver:

Kertz
Kertz

I think you can just see two decals for this website as advertising. Pretty poor placement by me and perhaps I should change the colour.

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Mutability

A few summers ago my project was to build an ADS-B receiver and use the data collected to upload to an aircraft tracking website. If you want to see what I see then go to:

360 Radar

I don’t remember the details about how I found this but the project was good fun and I got the Raspberry Pi in the loft with a decent aerial, filter and pre-amp, and it was all working fine. I was using a lovely piece of software called Virtual Radar Server and was able to use this as a web server and people could see the aircraft on web pages served by the Pi.

360 Radar is good because it using multi-lateration to detect the positions on military aircraft. This is pretty handy for spotters like me and it also works well when I take cadets to RAF Wittering for some Air Experience Flying, I can see where my cadets are in the air.

Over the last few months I’d been receiving outage warnings from the 360 guys. It would appear that my Pi had stopped sending them data and while I live in a flight-busy area of the country and there’s plenty of contributors here every little helps. I had the occasional outage and this seemed to be when the router reset and the Pi wouldn’t re-find the existing wi-fi network. I just had to power cycle the Pi and everything worked fine. The outages seemed to be occurring more over the last while with the Pi stopping feeding every few days.

At first I thought it was a wi-fi issue so I bought some new ethernet-over-power adapters and linked the system into the route via a wired connection. This also meant I could ssh in to the Pi even if wifi was the original problem. I tried to work out how to turn the wifi connection off entirely but just ended up changing the SSID the Pi looked for as a simle way of ensuring the wired connection took preference.

After a week of testing I was still getting outages and my initial thought was that the VRS software was making the Pi work too much. I’m not sure why I thought that but I looked up ways to remove VRS. This was not the easiest as I had installed it years ago and couldn’t remember how it ran within the OS. I eventually managed to remove the Mono service and this stopped VRS running.

It was at this point I worked out how to use the log file of the MLAT client and I could see that all the software seemed to be working fine it was the Dump1090 program that didn’t seem to be sending data internally. I figured that Dump1090 had somehow stopped receiving the signal from the aerial. It all worked fine after a reboot and so I decided to replace the USB dongle that was decoding the ADS-B signals. I ordered a FlightAware USB stick and at the same time decided I would rebuild the Pi OS from scratch to have a “clean” build.

Once the new USB stick arrived I turned off all the systems and followed the excellent instructions from the 360 Radar guys to rebuild the OS of the Pi and just run a lite version of what I had been doing before. This took a while as I mistakenly thought the Pi wasn’t uploading to 360 because I was looking at the wrong server details. After an email to the support chaps it turned out I was contributing and a couple of hours of troubleshooting by me hadn’t been worth it!

So, the Pi sits in the loft, chugging away supplying data to 360 Radar, in return for which I get free access to their excellent tracking site. I’m running dump1090-mutability along with the MLAT-Client from 360. I’d really like to be able to allow you all to see the output of this but Mutability doesn’t have an external feed and I am not opening up my 80 port for the world.

Output of dump1090-mutability
Output of dump1090-mutability
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Us

Yesterday I drove to the western half of Kent to see the film Us. I had to cross the Medway, much like the Romans about two thousand years ago but without the battle and invasion part. The cinema I went to is the Cineworld at Rochester. I picked the film Us because it was lowest on the list of films I’d least like to see that were being shown.

M2 Eastbound Medway Bridge
M2 Eastbound Medway Bridge

If you look carefully at the picture of the bridge you can see the work done to strengthen it. It has been reduced from four lanes to three due to the increased sizes of lorries allowed on UK roads by previous governments leading to a drop in rail freight and an increase in traffic. You can see the tide was middling.

As is custom I rated the film on IMDB and tweeted the result, this communication deals with the rating system:

I rarely go to see horror films because most of the time they are stupid. Once you accept that supernatural stuff is just that – outside of natural and therefore doesn’t exist – you find ghost stories quite terrible. I’m still working through what I thought about certain aspects of this film, I guess it has got me thinking.

This film crossed many genres and I was surprised by that. But overall I found it a little boring and tired. Maybe I’ve seen too many of these types. Maybe I haven’t seen anything new for a long time. The reason I went to see this was I had heard it was meant to be pretty good. Shortly I am going to read some proper reviews to see what they say, to gain some insight into why other people thought the film really good. I can’t write too much here without spoilers.

There was a bible passage mentioned a few times throughout this film, it was Jeremiah 11:11. This is what it says:

Therefore this is what the Lord says: ‘I will bring on them a disaster they cannot escape. Although they cry out to me, I will not listen to them.

Not sure what it’s about but it does seem that the Lord is being a bit of a malicious prick.

I suspect this film is full of metaphor and I’m just missing the point.

 

I have just been and read the review of this film written in The Guardian. I don’t think there’s a great deal of insight in the review. It got 4 stars and I’m not really sure why.

UPDATE: I found someone who’s better at metaphor than me so if you want please read Eli Bosnik’s blog post.

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Nachtmahr – Electrowerkz

Last night was a chance to listen to some classic Austrian Industrial music at Electrowerkz. It’s in Torrens Street, Angel, which is a tiny little cul-de-sac with a smart pub at its entrance and an Alien-themed industrial-alternative club for other people at the other end.

I think last night was the forth time I’ve got clothes on and ready in another person’s driveway. I park in spaces that people don’t use, but I’m not a thief, I pay for the privilege to keep my car there.

First band on at Electrowerkz was Dunkelsucht. This probably translates to either dark thoughts or depression. I’m not sure and in this day and age it’s terrible that I haven’t looked up which it is. Maybe I’m too lazy. OK, I just went and did it and it apparently means Dark Investigated. I suspect not!

Dunkelsucht
Dunkelsucht

This band comprised a male singer and a female computer controller type person. They are from Switzerland and I quite enjoyed them. It seemed quite pop-like to me, but I suspect that in reality it’s quite heavy stuff? I’m never sure and I hate the fact that it’s all so subjective. I wrote in my notes that it was OK, they had good beats and I enjoyed it overall. I did find that in the middle of a few songs it suddenly went strange with melodies that seemed out of place.

The next band on were DKAG and I’ve seen them before a number of times. Smith and I stayed in the bar. I spent thirty seconds watching them, just to check they were the same. There’s a limit to how much I can take. I’ve kinda come to the conclusion that I really enjoy about forty five minutes of any band and show but after that I start to get bored because all the songs sound the same. I think that’s either because I enjoy M’era Luna and the shorter sets that I generally see there or the causation is the other way around and I just find shorter sets more interesting.

The headliners were Nachtmahr. As with the last time I saw them here there were only two of them. The singer, Thomas Rainer, and the computer controller were all by themselves. I know there were about five people on stage at M’era Luna although two of those were female stage show actors.

Nachtmahr - March 19
Nachtmahr – March 19

Nachtmahr played for a solid ninety minutes and if I’m honest I only started to struggle in the last fifteen or so, even given my rant a couple of paragraphs ago. They were pretty good, but I don’t think Rainer is a natural frontman. To me he looks like he’s playing an act, which all singers are to an extent, but he seems uncomfortable with it. I don’t mind that though. I’ve paid to see a show and I don’t want my musicians to look like they aren’t enjoying it.

Hello Crowd
Hello Crowd

This set had a load of classic songs you would expect to hear. I enjoyed it a lot.

What I found most interesting at the venue was that I would say it was easily a 50-50 split in the sexes of those attending. There was also a wide age spread from around 18 to around 65 from the looks of the people I saw. It was quite probably the most diverse audience I have seen yet for a gig. It was such a nice atmosphere, really enjoyable. A good night.

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