Communications

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Name Three Things That Shouldn’t Be In The Same Neighbourhood

Had a lovely day out in the “it turned out to be nicer than expected” weather for a cadet trip to Lydd to use the long ranges there. A long range is anything over 25m. I have my range conducting officer ticket for short ranges and would like to get my ticket for long ranges but, one day. Lydd Ranges is a base with lots of space for shooting things down on the Kent coast within the Romney Marshes site of special scientific interest. As you might expect there is a Danger Area which extends out into the sea. If you are thinking “What else could we put near here to ensure almost the perfect disaster” and if your answer is: an airport and a nuclear power station, then you are in for a treat.

Lydd Dangerous Things
Lydd Dangerous Things

The three things that I have circled are, from top to bottom, an airport, Lydd live firing ranges and a nuclear power station. I suppose it doesn’t get worse than that for potential danger. This is a funny end of the world, some unique habitats and plenty of open space. The fact that access is restricted a lot also means that the wildlife has the space to get on with it.

At The Far End Of Lydd Serial 34
At The Far End Of Lydd Serial 34

Serial 34 is a gallery range with manual targets. We had some firing practice from 100m where we zeroed the weapons and then did some firing from other positions from 100m and 200m. The wind was a bit much for newish cadets to have a go from further distances. We’d also want slightly better grouping sizes to be able to progress. If you double your distance then you double the size of your grouping [Theory Of A Group]. So, we’d be hoping for 100mm at 100m which would then lead to 200mm at 200m. Once you are beyond those sizes you aren’t really going to be hitting the target that much.

Lydd Ranges Serial 34
Lydd Ranges Serial 34

The morning was mostly cloudy with a little wind. In the afternoon the wind increased but the sun came out and so I have mildly weather affected skin on the parts of my body which were exposed – mainly my head. It feels OK about twelve hours later so I think I’ll be fine but I might look silly as I was wearing a baseball cap and so half my head is burnt along with a little rectangle where the cap size adjuster lives. Oh well.

This is communication number 1960. In keeping with recent tradition [not sure what happens when I get beyond the current year] here are some things that happened in that year as curated by me:

  • Humans descend to the lowest point on Earth.
  • 12,000 dead after an earthquake in Morocco.
  • Blue Streak is cancelled in UK.
  • A U-2 is shot down over USSR.
  • Mauritania [the crappiest country you’ve not heard of] becomes independent from France.
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Follow Me Around The World

I’m not sure when I started this journey but I’ve been flying [in a Sim – X-Plane] around the coastline of the world. I started on Anglesey in Wales and am currently in Iran. I suspect a future communication will just be a big long list of the airports visited as I complete this journey. I nearly turned around once I reached the Red Sea but have decided to see what happens as I head further east.

As I pass through airports I’ve been tweeting my journey. I’m not sure when I started doing that, I think I just wanted a record of the flights somewhere. They are in my virtual log book and also on a scrap of paper on the table next to me. The first one on the paper is Bamenda. I completed that flight on 13 July.

I’m not sure in what format to have all the airports listed in the end. Watch this space and see what I say. If you are lucky and go to this MAP when I am flying then you’ll be able to see where I am and what I’m doing. My aircraft user name is Kertz. Click on the aircraft to see which one is mine. You might be told it’s a Cessna. I can assure you it isn’t. Because the JoinFS software I used works across platforms you have to tell it what you are flying. There are some categories, but over all I have found that the system works well and I’ve flown with a friend while they are based in Texas IRL.

You Can Track My Flights
You Can Track My Flights

Above is what the maps will look like if you can find me. When you click on the aircraft there is information about them that pops up. It’s quite a neat little trick.

This is communication 1959 and here are some things that happened in that year:

  • Alaska becomes the 49th USA state.
  • A referendum is Switzerland turns down women’s suffrage.
  • British Empire Day is renamed Commonwealth Day. Why do we still have MBE medals??
  • The X-15 makes its first powered flight.
  • The first known human with HIV dies in the Congo.
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It’s A Shame I Wasn’t More Awake

The hot weather of the last few days has broken and I think it’s meant to be more “normal” over the next week or so. I don’t mind really. As long as I can drink enough water I’m generally happy in any temperature. So, last night I woke with the clapping of thunder and I pulled my window shut. I slowly decided whether to properly get and and watch the lightning as there is a decent vista from the back bedroom but my decision was – go back to sleep. I’ve seen storms before.

When I woke and eventually checked my phone there were loads of notifications of movement detected from my home security system. I wrote about this in this communication. It turns out that the lightning set off the record feature of the cameras and I got some shots of the sky being lit up by electrical discharge.

https://youtu.be/BKmHXTR2eLc

The green bits and pieces in the video are where the camera thinks there is movement so generally they are best to ignore. Of the videos the camera recorded this one was the best with a decent image of the strike.

This is communication number 1958 and so here are some things, curated by me, that happened in that year of the common era:

  • Sputnik 1 falls to Earth and burns up.
  • Bertrand Russell launches CND.
  • BBC Radiophonic workshop is established.
  • The last fully rigged sail trading ship sinks carrying guano.
  • The first motorway opens in the UK.
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Tres Hombres – ZZ Top

I have played this album precisely three times in its entity. I was given this by Shredder as a recommended thing to listen to. He was not wrong. I have played this album when I drove some pupils to Canterbury for a school visit – you want something you think most people will appreciate when driving others around. I have so much obnoxious music that it’s hard sometimes to find something suitable. I played this album over my Sonos system when building a climbing frame for the kids and then finally I played it the other day in preparation for this communication.

This is a brilliant album full of dirty, gritty, blues inspired songs that all sound great. It has a real down low feel to it whilst not being obnoxious. I do like it. I think it’s an album I will go for more often when I need something decent in the background.

This album is not anything like you would expect if all you know about ZZ Top is their songs from the eighties. It’s actually way better and I even like their rock stuff.

This is communication number 1957 so here are some things that happened then in the year of our lord:

  • The first frisbee
  • A hydrogen bomb accidentally falls from a bomber near Albuquerque.
  • A hurricane killed 400 people in Louisiana.
  • The Wolfenden Report was published in the UK recommending the legalisation of gay sex between consenting adults.
  • Gordon Gould invents the LASER.
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Not Sure How I Feel About This

The village in which I live is under attack. The attack is probably the thing that is needed for the country. But I don’t like it and it’s raising lots of horrible feelings and selfishness. Part of the local council plan involves adding 900 houses to the village where I have lived for almost twenty years. I wrote about this before in this communication. 900 houses. Right outside my garden. It makes me angry while at the same time I know housing has to go somewhere and I’ve always thought that people who protest should accept progress for the greater good.

So, first I want to recognise the need for new housing. Apparently there is a need for lots of homes for people and they need to go somewhere. I suspect it is easier to build on fresh ground than to rework brownfield sites to make them habitable. We all know that the housing developers and land owners are in the back pockets of many Tories and probably lots of other MPs too. Where I live is like Tory world centre and most of the local councillors are that way inclined too. So I do believe that the housing companies get the easier route for more financial security rather than actually doing what is right for the environment and local communities. That said, there is a need for housing.

I live in Tonbridge and Malling local district. I live almost at the northern tip of the district. I live in the relatively poor part of the district. The southern area is much wealthier. Do I think there’s a correlation to where the new housing is going and the relative wealth of the area? Of course I do. The wealthy have the ability to fight these things or at least bribe their way to not having the new houses nearby. It’s always the poorer people who get fucked over by those in power because for the powerful it’s about power and money and nothing else really.

The Medway Gap area has had masses of housing development over the last twenty years and it continues. The company that owns the land, Trenport, I’ve written about before. They like to think they are doing good things I suspect but ultimately don’t care as long as they can make themselves more powerful and more wealthy. Here’s a picture of what land is going to be developed:

My Feelings Are Unsure About This
My Feelings Are Unsure About This

As you can see in the picture Eccles is the blob of housing just right of centre and the pink land is the area going to be developed. I’m pretty sure you can see that it’s all fields. Arable land for growing crops to feed this country. Now, to be clear, not all that land is going to be housing. Some of it will be made into recreational land along with a village car park and community centre. We already have a community centre, it’s the church and hall which can be used by locals. Parking is utter shit in my village but the new car park won’t be big enough, they never are. I think there’s a new shop involved there too but what happens to the current village shop?

All the land heading SW from the village of Eccles is my current view out the back of my house. I don’t really want that to change. I can see for miles. I can see fields and trees and the woods in the distance. It’s a calming positively enduring view that helps my mental health. It’s one of the reasons I bought this house.

I’ve looked at the “consultation” online and the questions are clever. One of them asks what I use the field for currently. Well, in reality I walk or run or cycle on the footpaths. The developers are going to keep the footpaths so that should make me happy but it doesn’t. The reason I walk along those particular footpaths is that the outdoor experience is best there. Wide open spaces in the middle of a barley field really make you feel good. Just having the footpath there through houses isn’t going to be the same.

I’m stuck. I don’t want this development. For mostly selfish reasons. I like my view. I like the fields. I like the ambiance of the village. It feels “country” while entirely surrounded by massive urban sprawl. I know we need houses. I just think there’s somewhere else they could go.

This is communication number 1956 so here are a couple of things that happened that year:

  • IATA finalises the phonetic alphabet.
  • 96 US congress members sign a manifesto against de-segregation.
  • The last British troops leave Egypt.
  • The world’s first industrial scale nuclear power plant is opened at Calder Hall in England.
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Where Is Everything?

Just logged into 360 Radar to see what’s flying around [not that I hear anything]. I was just curious but I was shocked at what I found! I wasn’t shocked. I was pleasantly surprised but not shocked. I was trying to write in a click-bait format then, but I should’ve made the title completely click bait. Now I think about it, a lot of the titles of communications on this site are a bit click baity. I don’t really say what the communication is about I just write an obscure title. I can assure that writing them that way makes things much harder to look up in the future.

Nothing Over Kent
Nothing Over Kent

Nothing up there really. The Kent skies seem rather empty. Oh well, the flights will be heading over soon.

This is communication number 1955 and so here are some things that happened in that year of the common era:

  • 60,000 non-whites are forcibly evicted from their homes in South Africa.
  • 83 people are killed in a crash at Le Mans.
  • Ruth Ellis is the last woman to be executed [murdered by the state] in the UK.
  • Cardiff is declared as the capital of Wales.
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Trebuchet – George Hrab

I like this album. I don’t really like the production of the album and I know that’s a personal thing and Hrab is the person who is in charge of the whole thing. George Hrab has a podcast, or used to, called Geologic which I have spent some time listening to. He’s a science communicator and skeptic along with being a talented musician and song writer.

All the songs on this album are extremely well written. They cover lots of ideas from the skeptical community and make me smile whenever I listen to this album. Some ideas of the titles on this record:

  • God Is Not Great
  • Everything Alive Will Die Someday
  • When I Was Your Age
  • Death From The Skies – highly recommended
  • Small Comfort

This album has a lovely style and a great message to push to the listeners. I enjoy it. It’s not metal and that’s fine.

This is communication number 1954 and so here are some things that happened that year:

  • Eisenhower warns against his country’s intervention in Vietnam.
  • The first subway line in Toronto.
  • The Boeing 707 is released.
  • Food rationing ends in the UK.
  • Lord Of The Flies is published by a writer who worked previously as a teacher at MGS.
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Gosh, It Looks Beautiful

I think I’m going to stop. I’ve bought a beast of a machine with screens to match those abilities. I remember I first bought a PC for making music and I wasn’t really bothered about gaming performance, and that’s still mostly true. I’m not a hardcore PC gamer but I am very interested in flying. It just happens to turn out that the flight sim of choice – X-Plane is quite consuming of PC power. It’s also an odd program with the way it utilises the cores of the PC. Anyway. I’ve been trying to get the best flight simulation screen-age. I think I’m there although to use all the pixels to the maximum I will need another PC but that’s going to have to wait.

The Beautiful Front View
The Beautiful Front View

I’m not going to go through the specification of everything. Needless to say I’m very happy with it all. The curved monitor is very bright! It also chucks out a lot of heat so I think I’m not doing my bit for the environment. To keep everything in this position there’s a level of chaos to the reverse view:

What It Takes To Have Beauty
Takes To Have Beauty

The curved screen has its own stand and the two top monitors are connected via 100mm VESA things to different arms on the metre high pole screwed to the desk. Look, it all works fine and is lined up to within tolerances.

This is communication 1953 and so here are some things that happened in that year of the common era in keeping with recent tradition:

  • Derek Bentley is executed [murdered by the state] in Wandsworth prison.
  • The North Sea flood kills over 2000 in coastal countries.
  • The Polio vaccine is announced.
  • The first RO-RO crossing of the English Channel.
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Trainspotting – Various Artists

There must be something about movie soundtracks when they are done well because I have a few. I’ve even got the Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs soundtracks somewhere but I’m not sure they are on my Sonos system, I’ll have to look into that. The slightly bigger issue is that my PC does not have an optical drive. I’d have to break out my laptop from 2008 to rip the files onto the system, that’s easy enough even though I’ll have to chuck some coal in the fire.

This album is a great collection of songs used in the film Trainspotting. I think I would say they are all rather middle of the road, gentle paced songs. I don’t think there’s a bad song on there.

I do have some words to say about Born Slippy. This isn’t really anything about the song but more an anecdote about terrible behaviour by me. I was at a wedding reception/evening do, you know, the kind of thing where you aren’t good enough to be at the ceremony but you are allowed the food. I think it was at the Weald Of Kent golf club building thing. It was somewhere there, I don’t entirely remember for alcohol reasons. I might have had some drink because it’s a wedding. The DJ person put Born Slippy on and I danced a stupid dance but they cut the song halfway through before all the drumming bits. I recall having a bit of a go and made them play the whole song. I think it was just me on the dance floor but when the music moves you . . . .

This is communication number 1952 and so here are some things that happened that year of the common era:

  • Rioters target British and upper-class Egyptian businesses, it’s almost as if the class struggle and recognition for fair wages and rights has been eternal.
  • The B-52 flies for the first time.
  • The Roman Catholic church bans the books of Andre Gide.
  • The Great Smog of London.
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Public – Private

I’ve recently been thinking about the lives of people and the ideas of privacy within those lives. I say recently but I titled this communication in early 2020 so recently for me means a few years. I just keep my thoughts ticking over, trying to come to conclusions.

Shall we start with those paragons of duplicity – politicians. When I was younger it was scandalous for a politician to have an affair. It would pretty much break their career and they would be in the press for a long time about it. Oh, shit, I think I am about to defend politicians here, but here is the thought process: I don’t care who a politician sleeps with [as long as its consensual]. I don’t care if their partner “forgives” them or not. I honestly don’t. I think that’s a matter for the politician and their family to sort out. Who are we to judge their own morality on relationships. The bigger issue is: does the politician tell the TRUTH about it to their partner. I just want my politicians to tell the truth. I genuinely don’t care who they fuck or what their emotional relationships are like. As long as those behaviours are consensual and within the law then that’s fine.

I don’t think having sex with someone else is a big thing. What’s important is that different people have different approaches to relationships and that should be recognised. I don’t think it matters what type of sex they have – heterosexual, gay, BDSM, etc – what’s important is that they can do their job and be truthful [hopefully they are intelligent too]. There’s a puritanical element to morality that still clouds this country and most of the world. We seem to think that someone having an affair makes them a bad person or unsuitable for their job. I don’t think it does. What’s important is that they deal with the emotional fallout of the affair correctly. Mind you, lying does make someone unsuitable for their job, unless you are a spy. When you are in a position of public trust you should speak the truth for the good of the public and not lie for your own ambitions. Funny how that is not the way our current PM works.

I think there’s an issue with the concept of marriage and being in a relationship that sexual-monogamy is either expected or promised in a public ceremony. Perhaps it is the idea that a “wandering” politician has broken a promise that gets the press and media all het up? I don’t think that’s what it is. I’ve never seen a line of questioning which goes on about “how do you feel about breaking your wedding vows? Why should we trust you now?”. Maybe that’s the bigger issue but the new would run with the idea of someone fucking someone else rather than the issues of trust and truth.

Let’s have a look at Boris Johnson for a moment as an example of my ideas here. He has plenty of children – the number is not even confirmed by him – and by different mothers. But who cares about that? As long as he has decent relationships with his children and is a good father to them then that’s ok. What should disqualify Johnson from office is the fact that he’s a proven liar. Oh, and he’s a racist too. Oh, and he’s not that intelligent also. The concept that this country elected him to power makes me sad. Really sad. Most people in this country are mildly racist and selfish.

So, the conclusion for me here is that I don’t care about your emotional lives or your sexual lives. I won’t make moral judgement on you for that. I will make moral judgements on you for lying or being selfish or not doing your job properly or blaming other people all the time. Accept your responsibilities and do your job.

What do we do if a politician is a racist? In recent memory it turns out that the UK elects them – see Priti Patel, Boris Johnson, a lot of the Tories. Should harbouring racist thoughts, or other views deemed unpleasant by modern societies, bar you from public work or, in fact, any job? I’m not sure. It’s probably best to leave politicians behind here because their whole thing is appealing to the public and when the public are mildly racist it means that’s what you have to be to get elected [as much as that depresses me]. Let’s look at someone with a job involving a position of influence. Let’s consider a teacher.

So, teacher Jack has ten years at the chalkface and is broadly liked by most people they work with. But they have a social media account under an assumed name and contribute and publicise racist literature online. In other aspects of their teaching job it is not clear that Jack is a racist and their attitude to pupils and staff from all backgrounds is normal. This person doesn’t push their agenda in lesson time but they are a racist pig. This is quite hard isn’t it. Jack is a racist but it doesn’t affect their job and they don’t influence pupils with their views. If it doesn’t affect their interaction with other humans then I guess that’s ok. Everyone is entitled to their own political views, no matter how objectionable by modern standards, as long as it stays in their head then I guess that’s ok.

Perhaps Jack let’s things slip now and then in discussions with staff. There are trigger words and phrases that are used by the far-right and now and then there are hints of these in the staff room. Does this matter? Should this person’s racist views disqualify them from their teaching position? Again I think it’s about influencing others. Most adults meet plenty of assholes in their lives and you learn to ignore them and keep them at arm’s length. You probably try to understand that political views are for each person to decide and you leave Jack be. However, as a teacher Jack is in a position of influence over children and young adults who are developing their own morality and political views. Hopefully these young voters of the future will listen to other views and form their own conclusions. What we don’t want is young people placing extra value to obnoxious views held by people in positions of influence.

It’s probably a good time to say that the zeitgeist moves and what is and isn’t acceptable morally and politically changes through time. I’d like to think that as we grow as a society we develop more tolerant views of others and accept people for who they are [within the common law – ie murderers are bad]. We have a lot of work to do to educate people on the wide variety of the human condition and to develop attitudes of trust and understanding. Just think about how society has changed and accepted homosexuality over the last fifty years, there’s still a lot more to do. To help us judge what views are more correct than others I try to use the golden rule of “just be nice to people” and “treat people how you would want to be treated”. I think if any of your own morality goes against those rules then you can fuck off. Hence, racist views shouldn’t be made public in positions of power or influence. I don’t care if you are racist but I do care if other see you and think that it’s ok to be racist.

So, I think I’m nearing a conclusion. I think that if you are a cunt then as long as you keep that private and out of influencing others then that’s ok. Be however shitty you want. If your behaviour influences others to be a prick then I think you need to be deplatformed. If you can’t push views of tolerance and being nice to all people then you shouldn’t be in those positions of power. This is where I hate the current bunch of politicians. They have been openly racist in the past and yet this country has elected them. They are seemingly unable to care for others and treat people nicely. They lack empathy and tolerance. They have a massive public platform on which to do these things and so they normalise this behaviour.

If you preach hatred or intolerance then you shouldn’t have a platform. There we go. I think I’ve made my conclusion. I’ll probably mess around with this while I run through the countryside shortly and I’ll make sure that any edits I make are highlighted.

This is communication number 1951 and so in keeping with tradition here are some things that happened in that year:

  • A fire on a train in Japan kills more than 100.
  • A blue sun appears over Europe dues to ash from Canadian forest fires.
  • A water storage tank collapses in New Mexico killing 4 and destroying 200 buildings.
  • The Day The Earth Stood Still is released.
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