It's Friday. In the Muslim world that's the core day of rest when almost everyone is off work and many go to the mosque and spend the day with their families. There's a lie in and no morning rush hour.
And yet for the last two Fridays the building site next door has chosen to begin work at 0530 as it is just getting light and has also chosen to concentrate on installing the air-con ducts. Which means steel saws, grinders and hammering on the ductwork. Some of the loudest and most penetrating noises on site at anytime.
Now there are real cultural differences between Western Europe and over here - even in the realm of noise. Apart from anything else people simply talk more loudly. And use of the horn in the car - which admittedly given the driving quality is very necessary - is hardwired in the brain and surfaces at very odd times. Including at the local shops and cafes where it is the accepted signal for staff to come outside and serve you in the car. No one leaves the comfort of their air conditioned car if they don't REALLY have to.
But steel saws, grinders and hammering at 0530 on a Friday? That's plain inconsiderate. And illegal - but complaining is hard and by the time you reach some sort of agreement with someone who can do something about it the moment has passed. For half an hour.
Still the cafe next door has some advantages beyond fine tea. Today a local police traffic patrol pulled in for their early morning break. And the grinders started up on the building site. Just as the cops were setlting down for their tea break.
The sergeant was not happy. Words were exchanged (and paperwork) with the site foreman. The grinding has stopped and the truck from the air-con company has left the site. Ahhh...peace. It's 0645 now. I'm going back to bed for some more zzzzz's. Let's hope my snoring doesn't disturb the next patrol.
21 May 2010
A message from Him/Her/It
If - and it's a big IF - I were the supreme Deity there'd be a few guidelines and a (VERY) few rules:
Rules:
1 Do nothing in my name unless you have a solid gold tablet in triplicate with my signature on it and countersigned by at least two other supreme deities from other parallel universes. And generally not even then. If fact... probably for the best just to do NOTHING in my name ever. I'm cool with that.
2 Do not deliberately hurt people or kill them.
3 If you're of the carnivore persuasion you can eat to survive. But no killing or hurting animal life for fun or sport.
4 Be prepared for smiting if I find Rule 1 being ignored.
Guidelines:
I'm omnipotent and omniscient. There is no contradiction here because I say so. OK? So no half arsed philosophising on how that works. It just does.
I do not need your protection. If people are rude to me and I'm pissed off I'll smite them myself. You are not required to do it for me. See rule two above for further guidance.
Actually I rather like dissent. It suggests you've been thinking even if you turn out to be wrong. It's why I gave you both Free Will and Brains.
Speaking of Free Will...if bad things happen it's either because you screwed up or because stuff happens in a self-organising universe like the way I designed it. It does not mean you're evil/bad or that I'm displeased. You should feel sad and probably annoyed. But do whatever you can to make it better. Or don't. Your choice.
I have commanded no particular actions and demand nothing of you beyond Rules 1-4 above. Everything is down to Free Will - including ignoring the Rules if you want to.
Some of the Churches from places like the the Middle East have rules about what you can eat and what you can't. These made some sense when you were nomads living in the desert with little water and no technology. Shrimp goes off real quick in the heat and pork is a bugger if you don't cook it properly. but these days...well just use the fridge and wash your hands carefully and heat things up properly. You'll be fine.
Btw on the subject of food. Macdonalds is nothing to do with me. You did that to yourselves though I've no idea why. Which is hard; on account of my being omniscient...
I quite like other religions but I really do not like Churches. If you were to use that big brain and the Free Will thing you might seriously consider disbanding all the churches and distributing their wealth to good causes.
If you must have Churches and priests and stuff for goodness sake let 'em marry and live lives like normal people. After all that's what they are. They don't deserve any particular reverence but they don't deserve any particular harshness either.
And invest in heating/air-conditioning for churches and padding for the seats. A lot of people who like to go to churches are old or frail or poor and deserve a bit of comfort.
And while we're on the subject of Churches...I don't have a dress code or any desire to have you mutilate yourselves for me. See Rule 1 above.
Go check out Wikipedia - that's a really cool human invention; way to go Free Will and Big Brain - and read about the Flying Spaghetti Monster. And check out the "I'd Really Rather You Didn'ts" They work well for anything I've missed.
Bill & Ted's Movies had it down pretty well to. I never understood why they didn't do better. "Be Excellent to each other" pretty much covers it.
Toodles//G
Rules:
1 Do nothing in my name unless you have a solid gold tablet in triplicate with my signature on it and countersigned by at least two other supreme deities from other parallel universes. And generally not even then. If fact... probably for the best just to do NOTHING in my name ever. I'm cool with that.
2 Do not deliberately hurt people or kill them.
3 If you're of the carnivore persuasion you can eat to survive. But no killing or hurting animal life for fun or sport.
4 Be prepared for smiting if I find Rule 1 being ignored.
Guidelines:
I'm omnipotent and omniscient. There is no contradiction here because I say so. OK? So no half arsed philosophising on how that works. It just does.
I do not need your protection. If people are rude to me and I'm pissed off I'll smite them myself. You are not required to do it for me. See rule two above for further guidance.
Actually I rather like dissent. It suggests you've been thinking even if you turn out to be wrong. It's why I gave you both Free Will and Brains.
Speaking of Free Will...if bad things happen it's either because you screwed up or because stuff happens in a self-organising universe like the way I designed it. It does not mean you're evil/bad or that I'm displeased. You should feel sad and probably annoyed. But do whatever you can to make it better. Or don't. Your choice.
I have commanded no particular actions and demand nothing of you beyond Rules 1-4 above. Everything is down to Free Will - including ignoring the Rules if you want to.
Some of the Churches from places like the the Middle East have rules about what you can eat and what you can't. These made some sense when you were nomads living in the desert with little water and no technology. Shrimp goes off real quick in the heat and pork is a bugger if you don't cook it properly. but these days...well just use the fridge and wash your hands carefully and heat things up properly. You'll be fine.
Btw on the subject of food. Macdonalds is nothing to do with me. You did that to yourselves though I've no idea why. Which is hard; on account of my being omniscient...
I quite like other religions but I really do not like Churches. If you were to use that big brain and the Free Will thing you might seriously consider disbanding all the churches and distributing their wealth to good causes.
If you must have Churches and priests and stuff for goodness sake let 'em marry and live lives like normal people. After all that's what they are. They don't deserve any particular reverence but they don't deserve any particular harshness either.
And invest in heating/air-conditioning for churches and padding for the seats. A lot of people who like to go to churches are old or frail or poor and deserve a bit of comfort.
And while we're on the subject of Churches...I don't have a dress code or any desire to have you mutilate yourselves for me. See Rule 1 above.
Go check out Wikipedia - that's a really cool human invention; way to go Free Will and Big Brain - and read about the Flying Spaghetti Monster. And check out the "I'd Really Rather You Didn'ts" They work well for anything I've missed.
Bill & Ted's Movies had it down pretty well to. I never understood why they didn't do better. "Be Excellent to each other" pretty much covers it.
Toodles//G
02 May 2010
On cold air and clean transport
Summer's coming. It's 0100hrs and 32C here. It hit 41C earlier today. Though the humidity hasn't kicked in yet so it's bearable still.
But you can feel people slowing down. It really does drain it out of you and you lose all inclination to move at all if possible. Or, you turn up the aircon in the apartment or office or car and live in a cold cocoon.
I was pondering this because I recently saw a demo of an air-powered car. A neat new design using multiple cylinders so that compressed air powers the first cylinder but is still somewhat compressed so it is shunted to a second and then again a third to extract the maximum power per shot of compressed air.
And what comes out the other end? Icy cold air - in this case at -10C. But that's all. Then when it ran low on fuel it stopped at a local gas station and refilled the tanks - at least with enough to get the car back to base where it would receive a safe full fill from it's very own compressor in the garage.
100km on a single charge in two smallish SCUBA sized tanks and pennies in electricity needed to refill. It's by no means a panacea. Electricity needs to be made somewhere but it is cleaner by far than battery power - no heavy metals or nasty mining waste or transporting iffy materials round the world to build the tanks and compressors - and cheaper to maintain. I've got a compressor in my garage at home in the UK that's not much off 100 yeas old. Not many batteries last that long...
I hope we can raise some investment to go to the next phase. This is a great idea that has huge potential if fully developed. Got a whizzy new and extra efficient compressor design using similar concepts to launch too.
But you can feel people slowing down. It really does drain it out of you and you lose all inclination to move at all if possible. Or, you turn up the aircon in the apartment or office or car and live in a cold cocoon.
I was pondering this because I recently saw a demo of an air-powered car. A neat new design using multiple cylinders so that compressed air powers the first cylinder but is still somewhat compressed so it is shunted to a second and then again a third to extract the maximum power per shot of compressed air.
And what comes out the other end? Icy cold air - in this case at -10C. But that's all. Then when it ran low on fuel it stopped at a local gas station and refilled the tanks - at least with enough to get the car back to base where it would receive a safe full fill from it's very own compressor in the garage.
100km on a single charge in two smallish SCUBA sized tanks and pennies in electricity needed to refill. It's by no means a panacea. Electricity needs to be made somewhere but it is cleaner by far than battery power - no heavy metals or nasty mining waste or transporting iffy materials round the world to build the tanks and compressors - and cheaper to maintain. I've got a compressor in my garage at home in the UK that's not much off 100 yeas old. Not many batteries last that long...
I hope we can raise some investment to go to the next phase. This is a great idea that has huge potential if fully developed. Got a whizzy new and extra efficient compressor design using similar concepts to launch too.
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