penguin – Page 44 – Fooyah

June 12 2020June 12 2020

Nuance Needed

There’s plenty of discussion around at the moment about statues of mostly dead famous people who were wealthy. They also had the unfortunate problem of being slave owners or traders or racists etc. This is causing a lot of discussion across the country and in my mind it’s one of those binary things that means subtlety doesn’t really come into it. A statue can either be in place or it can not. Those are your choices. So, it’s quite tricky to decide what is right for us to do. There is no room for nuance in these matters where the outcome is either yes or no.

A statue on display or the naming of a building or football team or military base venerates that thing. Let’s take the Colston statue which was torn down in Bristol. Colston made a load of money and was very influential in the Bristol area and also a MP. He made this money, or a large part of it, from the slave trade. The slave trade was wrong and many countries current wealth relies on the fact that slaves were used as part of its history. So, in my view, this is an easy one. Remove the statue from public veneration in the city. I will explain later what I would like to see done with it.

That was the easy one. Let’s think about this using someone less controversial and who many people won’t have heard of. Then we can thought experiment around with it to see where we go. So, in Kirriemuir there is a statue of the early AC/DC singer Bon Scott. Now, I adore the songs of AC/DC and I love the lyrics that Bon wrote. I remember watching the video “Let There Be Rock” and I cried at the end when it came up with the title “For Bon . . “. He was an influential singer and songwriter and so this is easy. It is currently morally right for that statue to be in the town where he was born. Was Bon Scott an angel? Most likely not. Did he piss off a few people in his life? I expect so. Is there any credible evidence that he did bad things? Not that I’m aware.

Now Bon Scott had a lot of sex. As far as we all know it was consensual. So, what if evidence arose that he had raped someone? I think that would be enough evidence for a public discussion about whether the statue should remain. I think it should be removed. Will people still listen to his music? Quite likely. It is a sad world currently where the level of rape and sexual assault is underestimated and under reported because it’s not seen as “serious”. The #metoo movement should have opened our eyes, I fear it did not, to the fact that almost EVERY woman has had some experience of sexual assault and it’s seen as “not a problem”. This attitude even affects the way I write this, as I’ve re-drafted it a few times because it was almost natural to minimise the effects of rape and its consequences because of its portrayal and current standing in society. I have corrected this thought process with the words I changed and feel ashamed of my first draft as I know three women who have been raped. This minimising societal reaction to female sexual assault needs to change.

Let’s ramp up the level a little bit. Let’s say that Bon Scott fucked a child. Now, by definition, this is non-consensual and also this offence is accepted as fundamentally wrong by all. In this case I think the public mood would be very different and there would be immediate public argument for the removal of the statue. It’s is not a good sign in society when the age difference of the victim plays such a large role in the outcome of public mood. There is still much work to be done for crimes to be recognised and taken seriously.

All I did in that thought experiment was to have a singer of a band that most people don’t listen to have a dubious past. Our emotional attachment to the statue is minimal and we can clearly see how wrong-doing would change our perception of the necessity to have the statue on public display in a town or city. There is some argument to be made about whether we celebrate the art of a person but not that person and I struggle with this a bit but then I think the actual answer is easy. We remove that art. So we listen to the songs of Gary Glitter anymore? Do we listen to the songs of the LostProphets anymore? No. It’s easy isn’t it.

If you feel the need to defend people because of “what they did for our country” then maybe you need to look at the history of the country and re-evaluate your conceptions about the righteousness of that country. Maybe the country was built on the pain and suffering of millions and maybe that country needs to do something very serious to compensate for that. Defending these statues also means that you possibly need to look into your own thoughts and why you feel uncomfortable facing up to the horrors of your country. What is it that you are defending? What is it that you align with so strongly that you think a slave trader should be on prominent display in a city built on the slave trade and the human suffering that caused. Maybe you need to think a little bit about your white European elitism and privilege.

So, there are now calls for statues of Baden-Powell [homophobe and racist] and Churchill [eugenicist] to be removed. I’d even support the removal of any statues of Roald Dahl [anti semite]. I don’t have a problem with these being removed. It’s like the easiest question ever. Should we venerate people who had “troublesome” thoughts? No. Easy. It’s done. Just think back to the Bon Scott thought experiment. I personally think that our collective veneration for Churchill is strange. Yes, he led the country through the second world war, but was he just the man who happened to be the leader at that time?

It turns out that people are complicated and any form of veneration leads to complex thoughts and problems. Does owning a book by Roald Dahl make you an antisemite? No. Does it mean that you endorse his views? No. Are you allowed to enjoy his stories? I guess so, if you wish. Should the nation have a statue to him on public display for the nation and world to see? No. The nation would endorsing his views.

To make things better this country needs to recognise the pain in the past and make reparations for that. This country needs to do that, I suspect it will not, to make things right. A verbal apology doesn’t really cut it does it? Remember gay mathematician Alan Turing who helped win the second world war. He died after being hounded and sentenced to chemical castration because of homophobic laws. The government “apologised” in 2009. Turing died in 1954. What does the apology do? It’s just words. People are still hounded in society because they seem “different”. To make an apology work you have to be willing to change your behaviour. If you want to apologise for things in the past then we need to fully accept the past and be ashamed we need to change our society for the better and accept all people for who they are while denouncing behaviours that aren’t nice. I’m not sure that shame is a natural part of most Britons I know.

What to do with those statues? We keep them. In a national hall of shame and sorrow. We put these racists, homophobes, slavers, murderers and elitist figures into a large display area. Then, next to each figure we need to have displays showing why their statues were made in the first place. We need to list the “good” they did. Then next to that there needs to be an explanation of all the bad they did and things we now disagree with. Along with that there needs to be a list of all the work the country has done to right those wrongs. What money has been paid. What projects have been produced and how this country admits to its past along with what has and is doing to make sure the future is fairer to all.

Some of you might cry that “everyone was like that at the time”. We, no they weren’t. There were people who weren’t homophobic, there were people who weren’t antisemites, there were people who weren’t slave traders, there were people who weren’t responsible for the killing of thousands, there were people who weren’t sexists. There were people who argued against those things. Those are the people we should venerate.

June 8 2020June 7 2020

One Metre Cubed Blocks

Lockdown has led me to have the chance to learn how to play Minecraft. I know it’s not that hard, but I’ve found it interesting and fun. I’ve also had the chance to explore parts of the world that I can’t do in real life. I had started thinking that I would write today about systemic racism and privilege in our modern society but I’m not going to, yet. I think there’s been enough said over the last while and if you read these communications you will see what side I’m on. What I will say is that if you deny systemic racism then you either a purposely not reading or learning anything about our modern society or you are racist. I think my favourite thing I’ve seen written recently was – We hate Trump because he is racist, you hate Obama because you are racist – and don’t you go thinking this is just an American problem, it is rife in this little island over here too.

This is how much of the current world I have explored. It is approximately 5km across its furthest points. The base is somewhere in the middle of all that! This is the second Minecraft world I have generated, the first had me on an island in an ocean and I spent quite a while on that world but I have to say that being spawned in the woods and on a land of large area is much easier. It’s much easier to find resources. I find that I tend to separate my playing sessions into three main types.

Building Structures
Off Adventuring
Mining for Materials

The loop top right is one that I spent a few “days” exploring. When exploring I always have a bed, food and compass in my inventory. The bed is to be able to skip the night so that I encounter as few monsters as possible. Food is a requirement and then the compass I use to find my way back to the world spawn point. My main base is close to the world spawn point and I think that’s important along with a compass. I haven’t yet figured out how to use the Minecraft maps properly I need to do some reading on them. Each session I play is between one and two hours. I find the mining good fun and I think I try to see too much logic in the placement of blocks but also need to understand that while it’s random it is also procedurally generated. Building structure is excellent and my plans are slowly getting larger. I haven’t really figured out the aesthetics of it all yet and I need to practise my use of materials cleverly to look good but I’m getting the hang of it slowly.

My Buildings - Minecraft — My Buildings – Minecraft

My main structures are marked with red blotches in the above picture. Starting far left they are:

Beach House
Beach Station
Meadow Station
Main Base
First Harbour
Secret Mountain Base

I found the beach while I was off on a wander and I decided eventually to build a pathway from the main base to it as easy access to the sea is helpful in this game. Once I had a pathway in place with lit towers marking the route I then decided that the “day” it takes to walk was rather annoying and I chose to make a railway from the main base to my beach house. I knew I would have to gather a lot of resources and that I did. I needed plenty of railway and powered rails along with lots of blocks to make the whole line one straight section of railway. I chose to do this as it’s easier to head in a single direction through mountains and over rivers than winding your way, it also requires less material. The resulting railing is just under 1,6 kilometres long.

It's a long way to the beach — It’s a long way to the beach

To travel this far in the minecart takes about three real minutes. From main base to the beach house is about five real minutes of travel. At least it gives you time to sort out the inventory and make sure everything is placed neatly. Once the main railway was in place I built stations at each end and I don’t have any screen shots of those at the moment. I then wanted to build two decent looking bridges over two rivers and a future job is to build a nice viaduct where the railway passes over the swamp biome.

Ill try and get some screen shots of my stations and secret mountain base and put them on here sometime soon. I wanted my stations to be fun and represent the areas they headed to. So the station near the main base is fun colours and looks like a sweet while the station near the beach is green and looks like the forests the line heads towards. I have really done any Redstone constructions yet apart from the railway. I think I will need to start these soon as I would like to have a switch which turns railway points so you can pick your destination in the station and the correct railway line is chosen automatically. While I don’t know if this can be done I am sure I could find a guide if I wanted but I will learn bit by bit.

Because I’m classically on the left of politics I’m going to mention some problems with this game. Is this important? It’s just a game you say. Well, yes this is important because all of this adds to culture and what people think is acceptable. What do the Marvel films teach us? That the world will be saved by gods and masked superheroes with immense damage and that all arguments can be solved through violence. This is partly why I don’t really enjoy these movies, that and they aren’t that good. So, Minecraft. Let’s look at the overall themes. I mine coal to power my cooking and smelting processes. I harvest trees for the wood but at least I can regrow the trees or even plant more than I have destroyed. Animals roam the land and I can use them for my own purposes. I get points for killing them and also for breeding them. If I’m trapped in a village overnight I can kick a villager out of their bed and sleep in it. I can destroy the villagers’ homes with no repercussions, I can steal their food and their possessions with no repercussions. I can kill them with no repercussions. I can take their lands and use their goods for my own purposes.

This game teaches you that there are no repercussions to stealing land, taking food, killing natives, destroying the planet, building whatever you want. I know this game is played a lot by younger children who love it. They love the creativity of it. They love challenging each other and it is a massive online arena with YouTubers careers made on explaining it to the world. But, when you break it down, what does it teach you? If there’s a better metaphor for historical and current European descent white supremacy then I’m not sure I know what it is. Where was this game created? Stockholm. Who owns it now? Microsoft. This world is biased and people claim they can’t see how! There, I managed to end this communication on a depressing note.

June 7 2020June 6 2020

Unused

One of the drawbacks of this lockdown [and by drawback I mean an entirely trivial thing that doesn’t really matter] is the inability to see new places. In the past I would often go for trips to see what is out there. During my normal summer break I would have travelled the length of this country seeking out new things. I would also have travelled to Germany to spend a lovely weekend watching bands at the M’era Luna festival in Hildesheim. The last three months have been spent at my house or in the local countryside [I am aware of the privilege there and I’ve written in the past about how I feel lucky to live where I do]. While I’m happy enough with my surrounds it is nice to get out and about. I miss seeing new things. I miss growing with experiences. I miss just sitting in a darkened room for two hours while images flicker in front of me.

Because I’ve not been doing anything new I haven’t been using my “big” camera. I’ve had plenty of projects to keep myself busy and the tech in my house just mysteriously keeps improving but I miss trying to get that lovely shot. Trying to frame a picture and get the camera settings correct so that the image “works”. By now I should have had trips to RAF Brize Norton and RAF Wittering, I should have been teaching weapon skills and I would have taken myself to the Lake District to bag some more mountains while camping at a site nestled between them. While the iPhone has been everywhere with me and I’ve taken some photographs with it I’d rather be out there doing proper stuff. I’ll have to think about how to do that. Maybe at the weekend. but, currently

the camera rests.

June 3 2020June 3 2020

Lego 67 – Model 75264

It’s been way too long for one of these communications so here’s a Star Wars miniature that was made recently in the May festival of Lego.

May 31 2020May 31 2020

Braking

A reasonable length of time ago I started to learn how to teach mathematics the year was 1995/6. During that academic year I received my second placement at a school in Kingston Upon Thames. I was living in Ealing at the time and my first school was The Featherstone High School in Southall and it was a couple of stops away by train. However, to get from Ealing to Kingston was not the easiest of journeys and meant about an hour on public transport. So, I decided to get a motorbike. That teacher training year was a surprise to me for two main reasons:

I discovered that I really loved teaching and decided to stay in that profession. My plans up to then had been to join the RAF as an educational officer.
I bought a motorbike, which I consider instant death traps, and I loved it.

So, I took my motorbike test in 1996 I think. I couldn’t remember the braking distances for different speeds and so one of my my flatmates, Greg, came up with the formula:

Braking distances formula where x is speed in MPH and result is braking distance in feet

Using this formula gives you the braking distance in feet when x is in miles per hour. Effectively it splits into two parts; the x is the thinking distance which is roughly one foot for each mile per hour and the x^2 is essentially the kinetic energy factor. I actually used this formula to work out the answer to the question in my motorbike driving test and got it correct although the tester was somewhat surprised I was using feet rather than metres even though both were acceptable in those days.

This distance is an estimate and cars nowadays will be able to stop in much shorter distances. The more you pay for your car the shorter the distance to stop [ish]]. Basically it’s one hundred metres to stop from 70 mph. That’s quite a distance and would probably surprise most people to see it laid out. It’s the length of a running track straight. When I try to visualise distances in the hundreds of metres I visualise a running track opening out to a straight line and then going across the school field. Humans are generally rubbish at estimating distances because it’s not something we do that often. Distance estimation is important in application of fire when shooting and you need to estimate distances quickly using visual clues to make sure you aim at the correct stop to hit the target. Bullets fall down to Earth, accelerating at 1g.

Now we get to the main point of this communication. In my experience over the last two months people are either:

Stupid
Unable to estimate distances
Unable to understand risk
Unable to follow instructions
Think they are indestructible

None of those things is mutually exclusive so maybe it’s all of them. My evidence is purely anecdotal and comes from my experiences of going to the supermarket. I have been to work thrice since the UK lockdown started and the few people there have been good at keeping their distances. My place of work is still open to the children of key workers and there have been some in allowing sections of this country to still function. The only other place I have mixed with the public is at the supermarket. I haven’t really ever had food shopping delivered and decided I wouldn’t start now and take a slot from someone else who needed it. Going to the supermarket is something I normally enjoy. I don’t know why but I like seeing the shop. If you think that is strange then I really love supermarkets abroad, I think they are such an insight into the people and I will happily walk up and down every aisle to see what’s there.

My normal supermarket is a Sainsbury’s nearby. In fact I’ve been using them for a while since my Nectar points balance went negative due to their errors. I’m not sure of the economic implications of a negative Nectar balance but I decided to shop there for a while. The first time I went to the supermarket they had set up a queuing system with lines on the floor where people could stand. I am not convinced these lines are two metres apart because two metres is probably further than you think but they are apart and so I’m not going there to measure them. That first time queuing someone was chatting to the person behind me and had to be asked to move away. I mean, I thought the instructions were pretty clear. Two metres is two metres. It’s more than the height of a standard house door. If you stand there with your arms outstretched you shouldn’t be able to tough another person’s hands with their arms outstretched.

Inside the store my experience was mostly positive. People seemed to be mostly keeping their distance. Most aisles are around two metres in width and so if you go down the sides you are probably a good distance away. I did find that some people weren’t following the instructions and while I waited at “pinch points” other people would go between me and the person I was waiting for. This, I think, is mostly to do with people not having patience or any altruism. I tried to do the right thing by keeping my distance but some people weren’t doing their best. This was a little frustrating. Mostly I found the experience OK and I don’t think I was too worried by the other shoppers, by and large it was OK.

A few weeks into the lockdown in the UK I went to a local Tesco store because I needed to buy some clothes. The Tesco has a larger selection of clothing and I honestly didn’t want to go to the Asda at the top of the hill because I was being snobbish. The queuing system outside the Tesco worked well but once inside I found there were problems. Tesco have placed arrows on the floor to try and make their customers move in the same direction and allow more people to browse particular products. That seems perfectly sensible but when a good proportion of the customers decided NOT to follow the one way system – WHICH IS THERE FOR THEIR SAFETY AND HEALTH – then the system fails. I was a good boy and followed the rules in place. That evening I found that a lot of customers either didn’t see the arrows or just ignored them. Too many people passed too close to me. My observances are:

People wearing face masks and gloves seem more likely to pass close.
Younger adults don’t give a shit.
Tesco don’t enforce the system – but how could they?
Kids don’t know better so that’s fine – don’t take kids shopping unless your situation requires it.

I hated the time I spent in this supermarket. It was frustrating and increased my stress levels to very high. I just wanted to get my stuff and get out. I really don’t understand why people won’t follow guidelines in place to keep them safe. I’m pretty sure they haven’t understood the risk assessment of these activities. Let’s look at these problems I saw:

Face masks and gloves – the evidence is that face masks don’t protect you from the virus. What face masks do is reduce the chance of you passing on the virus if you have it. Now, if you have symptoms you shouldn’t be outside at all. But, you could be asymptomatic, or you could be at the infectious stage just before you get symptoms. Wearing a face mask gives you a false sense of security and so you put yourself into more risky situations. I saw this is Tesco, I saw people wearing rushing around and getting close to people and they were the ones wearing face masks. Gloves won’t do shit. Gloves, again, give you a false sense of security and make it more likely that you will touch stuff. The best thing you can do is wash your hands before you go out and then wash your hands as soon as you get back. Do your best to not touch your face in the times inbetween.

Younger people – they have that sense of invulnerability that I once felt and I get it. They are going to do the things they want to do. But it could be that they are a massive vector for the virus because they are more likely to be asymptomatic. In a recent exercise walk around a lake I saw a group of around twenty youths all together. I understand and no one is really going to be able to tell them what to do.

Tesco decided to implement a one way system. I have spent a while thinking about this and my stress levels at Sainsbury’s are less because they don’t have a one way system. Therefore there isn’t a system for people to follow and so I don’t get annoyed when they don’t follow it. I still get annoyed by people passing too close but there isn’t the added issue of those people also blatantly ignoring the safety arrows of directionality.

I haven’t seen many young kids when I’ve been out and about. I understand that there are family situations that would make it hard for people to leave kids at home and I am sympathetic to them. You can only tell youngsters to do so much. This, of all the transgressions, seems the one that’s OK.

I go to Tesco rarely. This is to minimise my annoyance at people not following the system. I don’t wear a mask and I don’t wear gloves. In my head I model the water suspended droplets flowing around people as they move around and I try to avoid those areas. I hold my breath at certain times and I try to minimise the risk to myself. I don’t know if I’ve had the disease and I don’t know if I would be immune. I hope I have had it. I would like to be in the position to know that I don’t have to worry about getting it. I would like to be able to do my work and help others knowing it is unlikely I can pass it on and also unlikely I can catch it again. These are all things I do not know. The most important thing for people to do now is to reduce their own risk of getting the disease or passing it on. Until there is a vaccine available everyone is likely to get this at some point. Everyone is going to get ill and there are going to me many more deaths. What we need to do is minimise the risks to all and keep the health services going by spreading out the infection rate.

A couple more things to mention; the virus is called SARS-CoV-2, that’s the official name, the disease you get from the virus is called COVID-19. The virus belongs to the common cold virus family and not the flu virus family – they are very different shapes. The R value that the media are going on about is really the R₀ value. That’s pronounced R Nought or R Zero. I think the media have been a little lazy on this one but that could be just me. There are other R values and it’s important to talk about the one you mean. This one is the only one being talked about in the media so maybe I should be softer on this issue.

May 27 2020May 27 2020

CV-19 UK Tour

I’m missing seeing other parts of the world. I’m currently stuck in a small triangle within Kent and while I do appreciate the luck I have in being in this area I am also bored of it. I would like to visit RAF bases, I want to see other people and I would like to be atop mountains. Normally by now I would have been to the Lake District and also we had plans to go to RAF Halton, RAF Brize Norton and RAF Wittering. I miss those things and as much as I know I sometimes struggle socially I do miss the people.

So, I’ve started playing X-Plane about 30% seriously. I’ve been learning how to use navigation equipment within the aircraft and I’ve even started playing with the radio settings but my last attempt at that failed and I got told off by the game for not following the ATC instructions! I recently got some payware in the form of an aircraft model, the T-7A, and it’s a nice plane. It flies easy enough, can get up to speed quickly and has a glass cockpit. I’ve even figured out some small parts of the autopilot.

It’s slightly frustrating having to move my view around from the HUD to other parts of the cockpit to see the instruments and I’ll have to think about how to make that easier and quicker – maybe I need a second monitor? – but I’ll cope for now. One of the things I’ve always struggled with first person shoot em ups is that quick glances never seem to be that and moving the view can be time vital. Also, I’m not very good at them.

I’ve been flying around the country as part of this summer’s tour. The first few flights were down in the south over Kent and Cornwall but now I’m heading around airport hopping. A rough idea of places been so far are: RNAS Culdrose, Llanbedhr, RAF Valley, BAe Warton, RAF Leeming, Leuchars, RAF Lossiemouth, Kirkwall, Shetland, Stornoway, Prestwick, Glasgow, Isle Of Man, Belfast, Barrow.

This has been good fun so far. I think I’m going to head down the east coast next. Let’s see where I end up!

May 24 2020May 24 2020

Normal

I’ve been concerned recently with my lack of emotion and terror at the current Covid-19 and lockdown situation. Even when this started and I self-isolated on 17 March 2020 I was very much “oh well, I’ll have to do that” rather than feeling any particular angst at the need to do that. The last two months have had me working pretty hard remotely and only seeing one particular triangle of Kent. I’ve been to work, the supermarket and dropped the kids off. That is all I’ve done. I’ve not been anywhere else and it seems to feel completely normal. The economy is screwed, people are dying and risk-management has never been more complex and I’m just OK – I’ll get on with it.

I don’t know if this is a particularly British response to things. We seem to be a nation of people who by and large do as they’re told. That’s why we haven’t had political revolution in this country for four hundred years. It’s why, after the first world war, we didn’t have a massive change in society and leadership along with the rest of Europe. It’s probably why we tend to think we are better than everyone else. So, if the government tell us to do something by and large we do it. Sure, there are some groups who don’t understand or don’t care but this country has largely stopped for two months.

We like to think that those in charge are capable of being in charge. It is clear to me that this current government is a far from capable as possible. We would have to go back quite a way before I thought we had a government that actually cared. Those leaders at the top are lying, racist wankers. They have no talents. The people get the government they deserve. If you voted for these scum then you are to blame for the utter lack of planning, caring, organisation and intelligence in leadership at the moment. This makes it even more bothersome that I’m rather calm at the moment.

I do wonder if there is only so much panic and worry the human person can cope with. Eventually that all becomes tiresome and something has to give. It could be your mental health and the panic doesn’t die but other aspects of human behaviour and thought get amplified. This is not a good place to be. I feel that my behaviour has been more of a “oh well, let’s just get on with it” attitude. But not because the government tells me to, but more of a – this is the situation now and so I should do my best to be within that system. I guess I am being that “get on with it” British person. I know the risks to me are quite slim. I know there’s a decent chance I’ll come out of this fine. I am also glad I have a state income at the moment and if that fails then there are much larger problems with society and a lack of money is not going to matter.

I guess humans [extrapolating from n=1 : me] seem to adjust to change quite well and will do as they are told. I will say once again that I do not trust a single word of advice from the government but I also understand risk, biology and mathematics to a certain degree and so am able to understand what to do. I occasionally imagine what it would have been like eighty years ago. In the skies above my village there would have been bombers, fighters and all hell breaking loose. People living in my house at that time might have struggled mentally and might have gone mad, we don’t have those stories. But, those people living in my two up two down might have gone about their daily business thinking that this is what life is like at the moment and we still need to get the bread.

I do have a constant sense of anger at the government and the lies they say along with how terrible they are. The older I get the more I see the inequality and the uselessness of those in charge. I’m not sure I have ever really been so impressed with a government looking back through my time. We’ve had the following prime ministers Callahan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May and now Johnson. Of those that I remember I think two of them might have been just about OK and did the best they could. I am not endorsing everything they did – illegal wars for one thing and PPI for another – I’m just saying they were less bad than the others. There is far too much that needs to be done and too few people who really see the need. I said to a manager of mine recently that I’m always angry. I am. I’m like Dr Banner but without the green alter ego.

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:

Kent County Council Historical Things
Victoria County History
Cement Kilns

May 17 2020May 17 2020

UK Scenes

So, along with getting the new PC was the general concept that I would have a machine capable of running X-Plane which has ridiculous graphics simulation algorithms. I’m sure there could be flight simulators that run quicker and also look better but because of the physics engine employed by X-Plane it is the most accurate in terms of aircraft movement through the air. It used to be that to run X-Plane I had to turn off any clouds. These seem to really mess with the frame rate and the bottleneck occurs on the bus between the CPU RAM. I had spent a lot of time reading about finely tuning the software to give the best compromise between frame rate and looks. The new PC doesn’t really seem to have any problems and I just turn everything up to 11.

Browsing for a slightly better looking Great Britain I found, I don’t remember how, a website offering sexy GB scenery. I had to pay for it but it did look good. I was concerned about splashing out without being able to test the software but the company had a Demo area around Southampton. Orbx have a selection of payware airports along with GB scenery. I downloaded the Demo area and flew from Southampton Airport over Portsmouth and Gosport. The fact that I could see aircraft carriers in the harbour along with HMS Victory and the forts in the Solent meant I was smitten. The whole area looked great. So, I took the plunge and bought some scenery of GB. I had some cash stashed away from the sale of my old graphics card and those proceeds went to these views.

I have not been disappointed. There is now 367GB of GB scenery on the hard drive and while load times feel like forever, X-Plane is terrible at some things, the whole of the island of Great Britain looks spectacular. I’ve flown from Manston to Lydd to Southend to Heathrow. I’ve also covered Cornwall along with the Lake District. Next steps will be Wales and Scotland, specifically the Mach Loop and Lock Ness. Below is a gallery of some sights so far. After flying for a little while I turned some clouds on just to make it look more realistic. I know I’ve got the frame rate showing up in the top left corner and you might think that 30fps isn’t that great. Trust me, I would have had around 2fps using the old PC and these settings. I’m not really into bragging rights about fps and anything more that 50 seems iffy, not worth it? Happy to be proved wrong on that. Also, below, are a couple of pictures of the F-35B using the old scenery. Hopefully you can see the difference.

T-7A Plymouth and Rame Peninsula — T-7A Plymouth and Kingsand