I like this presentation from Siemens.
Corona Safety
March 3, 2020Covid-19 and the culling of humans
March 3, 2020It’s early days yet to have a clear picture of the effects of the Covid-19 coronovirus outbreak.
In all but being formally declared it is pretty close to being a pandemic.
But what is already pretty clear is that it targets and culls humans by age.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-sex-demographics/
data from worldometers.info
All the doomsday predictions throughout history that have come true
February 7, 2020list:
end:
Woke by the Iowa Caucus shambles
February 4, 2020I have been dragged out of my self-imposed hibernation by the shambles surrounding the Iowa Caucus. It ranks quite high on the entertainment scale (and certainly higher than the Eurovision song contest trials which are beginning).
The “partial” results are still awaited but the following thoughts occurred:
- Nothing wrong with Iowa or its caucus, only with the idiots counting and reporting the Democratic caucus.
- Trump won the Republican caucus, and also, it seems, the Democratic one.
- The “partial” results that will be first reported are those showing Sanders in the worst possible light.
- The cancelled results of the Des Moines Register poll and the delay in the results both – coincidentally of course – deny Sanders momentum and hide the disaster for Biden (who also coincidentally is the darling of the Democratic establishment).
- Voter suppression, candidate suppression, result suppression or – for the DNC – all of the above.
- Blaming age of voters and unfamiliarity with technology is just to hide an app not fit for purpose and incompetent developers and administrators.
Guaranteed entertainment till November.
Let the games commence.
Writing versus blogging
January 10, 2020The empirical evidence is in.
It has been 6 months since I suspended my blog posts in favour of trying to move forward with some of my many stalled “writing” projects. Though the last 6 months have been a little rough on the personal front, I take it as proven that refraining from writing blog posts has increased my productivity in other areas, since 3 of 9 stalled projects are now reaching completion.
- A biographical article which I started over 5 years ago is now complete and I am finalising the citations and illustrations,
- A book which I started in 2010 is now a complete draft where only a final revision is needed, and
- An attempt at fiction has achieved a complete – if incoherent – plot. The only problem is that some of the best bits I have written don’t quite fit the plot. The dilemma is whether to massage the plot or to rewrite whole sections.
In any case the progress made means that my blog posts will now slowly restart, though probably very intermittently. Hopefully these 3 texts can be finished/published by this summer.
Still gone writing
October 22, 2019It has been about 3 months since I decided to stay off this blog and try and bring some other writing projects to conclusions (finish or abandon).
I think it’s working but I have neither finished nor abandoned any of the 7 “projects” I had ongoing.
Another 3 months should begin to generate some clarity.
Nonsense and nonsense
July 23, 2019I am taking a break to try and finish some writing. But it’s slow going and I need a break from my break.
Nonsense verse always rejuvenates.
Trying to write nonsense is not as easy it might seem.
And there are many kinds of nonsense. But nonsense verse must be read aloud.
Cheese and ham
Once the mouse had got his spoon
The cat then stole his ham and peas.
The cow jumped over the waxing moon
If only it wasn’t made of cheese.
Maun thum kun
Maun thum kun lanti brangin frau
Klum framking, framking, panto prang
Tagarn hartino balarmun klau,
Stum ginto, thinto, fanto thrang
Gone writing
June 25, 2019Writing my book(s) is making progress (again) and this blog will have to play second fiddle for a while.
In the absence of nothing
June 13, 2019Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there!
He wasn’t there again today,
Oh how I wish he’d go away!
When I came home last night at three,
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall,
I couldn’t see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door…
Last night I saw upon the stair,
A little man who wasn’t there,
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away…
William Hughes Mearns
Can “nothing” exist, or is “nothing” a state of non-existence? Can “nothing” be negated? If “nothing” exists then – by our language and our reason – the non-existence of “nothing” creates “something”. Or is it the “something” which kills the “nothing”? Either way, the concept of nothingness lies in a twilight beyond rational thinking, beyond philosophy and is even intangible for metaphysics.
Martin Heidegger considered “Why is there something rather than nothing?” as the most fundamental issue of philosophy.
We know that what we call empty space within our universe may be devoid of any particles having mass. In the absence of particles we cannot define such things as temperature or pressure. But such space still has properties. It has dimensions, and it then has volume. It allows light to pass through. Gravitation and waves can propagate through it. It would seem that the laws of physics exist and apply in such space. Such is the empty space within atoms and the space between galaxies and what our spaceships would warp through. But there is even emptier space. That is what our universe expands into (assuming that the expansion of our universe is real). This space has no properties at all and does not even have dimensions until the expansion of the universe has occurred and has defined its existence. This space does not – to all our perceptions – exist until our universe has encompassed it.
The existence (or not) of nothingness is in our minds and in our language. It is not something which science can address. Science – and scientists – are restricted to the causal world and to the bounds of causality. Science has no light to shine on existence – especially existence as the non-existence of nothing. The property of “existence” can only be ascribed to “something”. And “something” cannot not exist. That is determined by our language and by the bounds our language sets upon our reason.
Nothing is the thought that wasn’t there.
Yesterday, upon the stair,
I had a thought which wasn’t there!
It wasn’t there again today,
Oh how I wish it would go away!
4,000 posts
June 8, 2019I started this blog on 16th April 2010 and have just reached 4,000 posts.
That’s 3,344 days and I am still ahead of my initial objective of writing a post a day.
It started off as a way of taking a break from other writing. I have never had any particular audience in mind and it has proved to be very effective therapy against “writers block”. Inevitably posts have been about any subject that happened to be uppermost in my mind at the time.
I have no aspirations to be educational or inspirational or of influencing others. I suppose – as with most writings – I keep posting to satisfy myself.
