Monday 24 February 2014

Internal monologue.

Our internal monologue is the longest conversation any of us have, yet none of it will ever be written down. I find myself asking think, what it would be great to have a machine to plug into your head, which transcribed it to the document of our lives.
If we for the moment ignore the possibility of such a document falling into the hands of someone we don't want to see it, we could investigate what we actually were thinking in the past.

About 15 years ago I got to play with an early version of IBMs ViaVoice, the main thing I learnt was that I say, ahem, a lot and mumble a lot, far more than my internal a dialogue does, I also learnt that my voice doesn't have the authoritative deep gravely sound of my internal monologue. I was already faintly aware of this from recording answer phone messages. but it still came as a shock that I sounded like one of the yokels caught in the lights of a TV news broadcast, trying to describe what just happened.

The greatest achievement of the human mind is the fiction of our memory. If it was a film our memory would have to be described as "inspired by real events". Depending on what type of person we are it is either a heroic epic, full of great deeds and victories snatched from the jaws of defeat or a forlorn tragedy, epic in its misfortune, missed chances and immense regrets.

In my head, I have written this next bit at least 20 times. It's funny, witty, erudite and enlightening. Your lives will be greatly enhanced by the wisdom and insight it provided. It seems to lose a certain something in transferring from my mind to the written form.

What you are experiencing here is the equivalent of watching an advert for the latest Ultra High Def TV on a 512 line black and white TV. With the sound being provided by a the valve of a 1950s AM radio. It's a horrible, degrading thing which only hints at the at what I am experiencing.

I'm 90% confident that what you experience, as your day to day life, in your own internal monologue, is as far removed from the fumbling, creaking, inarticulate  wreck that the rest of us see, as this paragraph is from the wonders realisation of the glories of existence and the appalling gulf between these little islands of consciousness that each of us represent.

If the greatest writers could transcribe even the smallest sliver of true experience, they would have to be 10 or 100 times greater than they actually are. The greatest works of art are a mere caricature of the universe and the slightest shadow of the human experience. The greatest novel, poem, play or installation figures as only the smallest vignette, in a small fraction of a a daily epic. In its solid, existent form it it is less, than a grain of sand in the experience of the creator and less than the smallest atom in that grain to the observer.

The creative efforts of man are simply the fertilizer for the internal experience, to add to the great and only work of all our lives, our internal monologue. The experience of work is greatest for its creator, true experience is the creation of things not in the appreciation of them. What you take away from seeing something is the best bit of the experience, what you take away is the internal dialogue and it is for the most part created by you.

Hearing a sound is more productive than the mundane, repetitive process of reproducing that sound.


Tuesday 18 February 2014

Scottish independence.

I'm not at all interested in the nation state whether it is keeping this one or splitting into little bits, my view is that there should simply be a hierarchy of democratic organizations working from, say the village, to all human beings everywhere. There are very few boundaries which are anything other than artifice. River banks and mountain ranges exist, but it's us who give them political meaning.
So really what I'd like to see is a federal UK, for purely simple reason and that is road regulations. I don't want to drive across the border and have to figure out is this sign in kilometers or miles? What do double yellow lines mean here?
Some of the Welsh are worrying about the fact that they are a principality and Scotland is a Kingdom/Country. This is down to the bit of history that Wales never had a King and didn't actually have 1 unifying prince. In a federal UK, Scotland is going to be unhappy about being on the same level as the English regions, even if they have bigger populations. So we going to have to give them a different title say Duchy, so I'll be living in the Duchy of the Northwest of England.
It all begins to sound a bit childish, but for traditionalists, it gives something to hang onto, I'm quite happy to live On Globe 1, Continent 3, Island 1, Zone 4, Encampment 27. Though I don't think the Post Office recognises that.
Is there something special about old borders are they magical, preordained by god?  Well UKIP, the Tories and the SNP seem to think so, as do dumb fuck organisations like the friends of real Lancashire. Which is to say the least, a rather odd grouping of people and political views. In various parts of twitter socialists can be seen claiming that the kings and queens of the middle ages got the division of countries just right, or was it the Romans. Which is a considerably different to their view on every other achievement of monarchy.
When someone who is outside of the debate ventures a comment, if they agree with you they are independent and talking sense, otherwise they improperly interfere in the running of another state or blackmail. It is, on both sides, one the most childish and obviously political debates ever. If there is anything to be proud of it the relatively good natured way in which this is being handled.

For all of us that just want to get on with our lives and reject the jingoism of both sides remember,

They can take our lives, but they will never take our tea.

Monday 10 February 2014

On the Levels

It is quite interesting watching the news about the flooding on the Somerset levels, the way in which any pressure groups like her Majesties loyal Opposition, Green Peace, StopHS2 the NFU will use it as a rallying cry for their cause, some of them may actually have a connection and something constructive to say but usually that is put in the background as the opportunity is taken to insert something far higher up the organisations agenda.
You would hope the journalists would be wise to this and perhaps ask some penetrating questions about some of the more outrageous claims, but no, that would spoil the sensation, make the overall story less newsworthy.
The Levels are, according to Wikipedia, "a sparsely populated coastal plain and wetland area". They're several clues words in that phrase that suggest that the area over time been regularly flooded. In medieval times all the  buildings would have been built on the highest ground to minimise flooding, and those that weren't would have been expected to on a regular basis.
Large parts of the land have been reclaimed since the Middle Ages, and have in common with most other wet areas in Western Europe, the greatest threat to life was not the flooding, but Malaria, which caused a high death toll in marshes up to the beginning of the 20th century. The great drive for drainage was in part driven by a need to reduce the malaria threat not simply to increase agricultural land. In the past areas like the levels and the Fens would have been very productive though wetlands, with great freshwater fisheries and water fowl. They provide hideouts for like of King Alfred in the 8 century, while the fens later hid Hereward the Wake.
It is very doubtful that even at the height of the drainage that the Levels would have coped with this year rain much better than they have, and the defences remain very close to that height. We heard that 6 months ago the NFU was calling for the rivers to be dredged and warning of disaster, but the press never asks where they also doing it 18 months ago, in fact have they been doing it every you since they were formed.
Keeping the water at bay is an impossible task, it would be far easier and cheaper to build only on the highest land, and where there is no high land to build on stilts.
Stilt houses are nothing new to the UK, in the days before the Romans building on stilts in the middle of a lake provided protection not from water but from the next tribe and wild animals.
If needed earthworks around existing builds will be cheaper than keeping in the rivers. Yes, it means that people may have to use boats, it means they may have to  have their own power generation ability and some food storage over the winter but this is what living in the country used to be about. There are helicopters for emergencies, radios and mobile phones for communication and even some crops that will survive this, or others that will grow after the flooding season is finished.
If we were present with the broads, fens, levels or moss in its original state today what would we do. We would be less worried about disease and fully able to decide what is the most productive form that the levels can take for us. In that situation, I doubt that we would opt for the whole scale drainage schemes our ancestors did. We would almost certainly reclaim some, preserve other bits and in general far more gentle mange the landscape.
We should take the opportunity to fall back from our over controlling desire and make the levels more robust under field conditions and try to find ways of taking advantage of those floods. I doubt that it can be like the Nile where a lack of flood is a disaster, but it can be at least neutral and it should not come as a surprise. Calling it a disaster is hyping it too much, no one has died (yet) over the next few years the defences of properties need to be built up, not the containment of rivers. The planning rules need to be changed to ensure that everything built can handle being flooded and continue to perform its job.


Monday 3 February 2014

HS2 the Truth

While some of you may have heard of organizations like StopHS2, who campaign against the building of HS2 so ineffectively, what you may not know is that they are in fact funded by HS2 Ltd. This is why they are so useless, the real purpose of these organizations is only in part to provide a veneer of protest but also to attract those that know the dark secrets of HS2 and wish to let the world know the truth. When such individuals approach StopHS2 their documents and evidence of the foul misdeeds of HS2, the documents are taken for safekeeping and MI5 and Special Branch are informed and the whistleblower is "dealt with".

Titanic.


Some of the latest research work has pointed to the cause of the sinking of the Titanic as the quality of the steel used in the hull, especially the rivets. These below standard components caused the hole created by the iceberg to be far larger than it should have been. The reason these rivets were weak was insufficient iron was available for the rivets and so they were made of an alloy of weaker metals. The shortage of Iron was HS2 Ltd using a TARDIS that they had secured from the BBC to acquire cheap Iron for the rails. They paid 1910 prices.

So by the end of 1912 HS2 had already killed 1518 people.


World War 1


One of the main causes of world war 1 was the need to transport troops to the front using rail, this had to be planned in very great detail and at the time would have taken a vast amount of time.  In order to save money the German government outsourced the planning of the train travel. Realising that with modern computer technology they could do the job more quickly HS2 Ltd used the TARDIS to bid for the contract, win it and then use some hastily written software to produce the plan. There bid was so expensive in order to get as much money out of the Germans. In the end the Germans could only afford to produce 1 plan that enabled mobilisation against France and Russia at the same time. So starting a war with one meant starting a war with both.

By the end of 1918 HS2 had killed another 11 million people

9/11.


HS2 Ltd orchestrated the 9/11 attacks on the twin towers. This was done to ensure that longer and longer check-in times where required, at airports so adding several hours to every journey. Not only that, but the cost of this security plus the reduced number of passengers because of the weight of the onboard security equipment and personnel, 4 out of every 5 people on a Ryan Air flight is security staff, the companies have to charge for flights. Without these extra costs everyone's journeys everywhere would be paid for by advertising, shown on the screens on the back of the seat.

So by the end of 2001 HS2 had killed another 2,996 people.

What is really planned for the future.

The production of the rails for HS2 will act to support the UKs ailing rail production Industry and also provides a clandestine stock of rails that can quickly be converted into rail guns. Each HS2 train set and the OHE equipment can be cannibalized to provide the electrical equipment for the gun.


Relativity and the Railway.


As most of you will be aware time is relative. For those travelling at high speed time passes slower than for those stationary. George Osborne and the Tories plan to capitalise on this by making the level of tax paid relate to the speed at which the local time of the Business HQ is travelling. Companies will be able to pay HS2 Ltd to base their head office on a train which continually runs at over 225mph, which will eliminate corporate tax for those companies. This will only apply to companies in the UK and on the ground, so airlines will offer no such benefit.
To this end the final HS3 will form an arc stretching across the two ligands of the Y and will allow a train to run continuously in a loop north of Birmingham at speeds of over 225mph.

The Quark Nugget Danger.


HS2 Ltd would rather you didn't know about Quark Nuggets, these microscopically small but incredibly massive objects hit the earth like buckshot, on a regular basis. When one of them hits a train travelling at over 200 mph the result will be carnage. HS2 Ltd know of the danger but keep silent about it why?

What was HS2 Ltds role in the Permian–Triassic extinction event
.
Deep in a Diamond mine in Russia miners was puzzled by a discovery, buried deep in sediment that has been laid down some 252 million years ago. That item was later discovered to be an early version of the HS2 documents delivered to parliament on a similar stick. HS2 putting unhelpful documents where it hopes they cannot be found using the BBC's TARDIS.