Down the rabbit hole...

I think it would be fair to say I am a jack and not a master. I love to know a little bit about all sorts of things but end up only having a veneer of understanding about a wide variety of topics. There have been some exceptions. For instance, when I moved from hierarchical to relational databases I had a transition problem so ended up having to dig right down to the internals of the code, and with the kind help of Oracle at the time went on their employees only internals course, and once I'd understood the file structures and what the developers were doing I could understand everything further up the layers! But that was a long time ago. I also studied economics to a reasonable level. After A level I kept on reading book after book and the more I read the more I appreciated if the fresh water and salt water communities could never agree then what hope was there for anyone else. So trying to help the average worker understand economics is no easy task. And, as I was, on four separa

 I've become intellectually lazy. I think I need to change that and get back to my daily thoughts! Well, if not daily, maybe bi-daily, as in every two days, not twice a day! And if not bi-daily then at least weekly!  Not that anyone is listening, except for my inner consciousness which, as we all know from my previous in depth semi-pseudo semi-psycho analysis, is really quite disturbed! My thought of the day comes after the attack on Sir Salman Rushdie, by a coward with little intelligence and presumably some mental issues! But later in the day I listened to an author who made some salient points that we need all to consider. He noted after the fatwa was issued over thirty years ago there was a coming together of most liberal minded people against the edict and an outpouring of support for Rushdie. But he noted, 'in this respect, we won the battle, but we are, today, losing the war!' What he means is. In those thirty years since a decrepit old man deigned to set mindlessly

 It seems like a long time since I unloaded my consciousness into a keyboard and onto the blog so I thought, maybe I should. I have been reading a lot more recently rather than writing. One thing I read was Bukowski's Hollywood. It was a bizarre and oddly easy read! I had heard many people over the years talk about Bukowski and an opportunity came to read a book and so I did. But what I found bizarre is the simple style, but then that also made it easy to read! Why should that be bizarre, well, possibly because I think I expected something deeper and more intense but Hollywood is just a first person retelling of his experience of getting his film made in Hollywood, much as he didn't really care whether it was or not although by the end he decidedly did, but also ticked it off as a done that, been there kind of moment never to be repeated. As he's dead, I guess he won't! But the simplistic style and straightforward dialogue was what made it a page turner hard to put down

  So, as per the title, a quick message to those anti-vaccers out there that believe the current crop of Covid19 vaccines will change your DNA or turn you into gibbering monkeys with a limp and halitosis. I just need you to do me, well, humanity a favour. Don't worry, I'm not going to be unpleasant, I respect your point of view, but, could you just try having a conversation with someone that actually knows what they are talking about. Or at least, check the credentials of the people you do listen to such as struck off nurses, struck off Drs, Drs who graduated from online universities in Uganda or psychics who are actually real space cadets and bloke down pub who's off with the fairies! After that if you are still a committed anti-vaccer or believe Covid is a hoax or you believe the world is flat, then, I hate to do this but I've got some more favours to ask. 1. Your local hospital requires help with a variety of menial unpaid tasks but you'll be rewarded with huge w

  How do we solve a problem like China! Does a problem like China actually exist? Can a problem like China be solved? Is China a problem at all?  This wittering is not about the Chinese people and their desire to eat exotic animals in wet markets. It's hardly as though they are the only nation in the world that do so. Actually it is probably normal behaviour in the east.  Any fuss about what the Chinese eat, or how, or when, or why is more to do with western sensitivities that have come about over the last few decades, after all I still recollect my mum telling me about how her mum would step outside, pick up a chicken from the yard and snap it's neck with a sharp expert twist in preparation for the Sunday dinner! It's just we have become inured against such things. As a society we pop into a supermarket and pickup a sanitised plastic packed pale, generally blood free, pack of one meat or another and try not to think about the process of where it was just five days earlier

  The daftest non-story that appears to be causing consternation with a larger number of people than is actually warranted is the nonsense about GameStop and the 'shareholder revolution' that is a real storm in a teacup and a huge non=story right the way up to the point the SEC manage to get their nose stuck in and then it turns from a non-story into a pro-Trump, pro-smallpeople, anti-establishment story. I suspect that 90% of people have no idea what the story is, why (or if) it matters etc etc. If anybody wanted to understand what's going on then they would have to have an understanding of how stock markets work, why they matter, what hedge funds are, what daytrading is, what reddit is etc etc etc. Far being it from me to start educating anybody about any of these trifling matters. Not least as I'm one of those 'lucky' individuals that have spent more time than feels healthy without a good shower and dose of antibiotics talking with, dealing with and shaking h