Back to 1869

Imagine you suddenly slipped through a wormhole in the space-time continuum and found yourself back in the year 1869.  If you could convince someone that you came from 2022, would we also be able to convince them of what 2022 is like, especially in terms of technology?

I don't think so, since a lot of it would be unbelievable to their ideas about what is possible.  Yes, motorcars would be believable to them since they had trains, although I assume they wouldn't envisage the complete ubiquity of cars on our roads.

What about the believability of the existence of small hand held devices that can enable you to instantaneously communicate with anyone on the planet who has a similar device? And that you can use to find the answer to any question that human beings know the answer to?  That can play chess, take photos, even use as a torch?  I would think they would think I'm barmy!

What if I approached a physicist and tried to explain quantum mechanics to them?  Not that I know much about QM.  I would have to say reality isn't continuous, but rather discontinuous.  And that reality exhibits differently, apparently changing its very nature, depending on our experimental apparatus.  That electrons exist both as particles and waves.. oh wait.. he'll ask what is an electron! OK, photons then (and would he know what "OK" means??).

Would I in fact change history?  Well yes, due to the butterfly effect.  But they wouldn't be able to use my knowledge of developments in physics even if, miraculously, I was taken seriously for one second!  

Mind you... if I had my smartphone on me...

Don't put central heating on this winter and save yourself ~ £600 to £1,000

My energy bills (electricity and gas combined) for last winter:

Oct-21 £84.48
Nov-21 £101.40
Dec-21 £100.32
Jan-22 £113.33
Feb-22 £98.31
Mar-22 £97.81

A total sum of £595.65

I'm trying to work out how much more I'll pay this winter. It would be vastly simpler if they simply specified kwhs used for both elect and gas. But, it is what it is, so...

First of all, this applies to the UK.  OK, price caps were and will be:

Oct-21 £1,277
Apr-22 £1,971
Oct-22 ~£3,420
Jan-23 ~£3,850

For the upcoming 6-month winter period, we need to take an average of the Oct 22 and Jan 23 price caps. Average of £3,420 and £3,850 is £3,635.

So bills in the forthcoming 6-month period from 1/10/22 to 1/4/23 will be £3,635 divided by £1,277 multiplied by one's 6 monthly bill from 1st Oct 21 to 1st April 22.

Hence, in my own case, this is 3635 divided by 1277 multiplied by 595.65 = £1,695.53. This is an extra cost of £1,099.88 for me (£1,695.53 - £595.65 = £1,099.88) compared to last year.

However, most of us received £150 from the Government, and we're all getting £400 (I think?), and other additional help for the poorest too. That's a total of £550 for most of us. So, for most of us, we need to find an extra £500 to £600 or so (but might vary a lot).

Of course, in practice, we'll be putting our central heating on less frequently. This is where it would be useful to know the price per kwh hour for both elect and gas.

But, anyway, Of that £565.65 cost last year I spent on energy, £264.49 of it went on gas.  That's 47% of my energy bill for the 6 winter months.  

So, if hypothetically, I don't use my gas at all, my energy bill for the forthcoming winter would be just 53% of my calculated £1,695.53, which is £902.72.  However, I'll need to get showers and wash the dishes.  Also, I bought myself a heating blanket in April that I will use this coming winter, which will marginally increase my electricity bill. But, maybe I could limit my total energy cost for those 6-months to, say, £1,100, a saving of ~£600? I should also point out that I only ever had my central heating on in the lounge, and not on all the time. Hence, others may save more than £600, possibly as much as a £1,000?

Since most of us are getting, or have got, £550 from the Government, that means, in terms of energy price inflation, many people, providing they never put on their central heating this winter, won't be any worse off than last winter! (of course there's food price increases, and all the rest, so don't get too relieved).

There is, of course, next April (2023).  But no one knows what the price cap will be then, nor what any Government help might be.  So let's just kick that worry-can down the road.

Update  26th August 2022   The price cap has been announced that will apply from the 1st October to the 1st January.  Above I mentioned that the estimate was £3,420. It will, in fact, be £3,549.  Much more importantly, though, the price cap for 1st January 2023 to 1st April 2023 is not now estimated to be £3,850, but rather an utterly staggeringly high £5,386!  So for the 6-month period beginning on the 1st of October, the average will not be the £3,635 I mentioned above, but rather £4,468.

At this point, even if not putting the central heating on at all won't make ends meet, there's nothing else I can advise. We just have to sit tight and hope and pray that the next PM will supply adequate help for those that need it.  This will require a huge sum of money of many many £billions.  Since our next PM will almost certainly be Liz Truss, then there could be turbulent times ahead.  It could be very grim indeed for many people.

Are companies permitted to lie about the terms of a contract over the phone or by webchat?

Back in May (2022) I agreed to subscribe to a 24-month broadband contract with Vodafone for £20 a month.  Crucially, I only agreed to this as I was assured the price would stay at £20.  Given the inflation rate, that made it reasonable value.  Here is a screenshot of that assurance (I've covered up her name).

It's not very clear, so I reproduce below:

Vodafone: you can get up to 70.5 Mbps download speed,

Download speed 38 Mbps to 70.5 Mbps Minimum guaranteed 35 Mbps 

Upload speed 10 Mbps to 18.4 Mbps

Vodafone: 24 month contract :)

Me: 24 months! Can you not make it 12 months? Also is the £20 price guaranteed, or might it go up during those 24 months? 

Me: Just grabbing a coffee, be 1 min 

Vodafone: we dont do 12 month contracts for broad band, only 24 months and no the price will stay £20 through out the 24 months, there will be no price increase at all :) 

Also, when I received the confirmation email, it said:

So that satisfies me since it implies that it will not increase before that 24-month period has elapsed, not even to keep up with inflation.

However, I've just read a telegraph article.  It refers to BT broadband bills increasing by somewhat more than inflation.  It says:

It puts BT at risk of a clash with the industry watchdog Ofcom, which is preparing to take action on misleading small-print charges.

At that point, I became concerned and did a search for Vodafone's small-print terms and conditions.  I found the following.

So, if I'm interpreting this correctly, the £20 charge will be increasing by inflation plus an additional 3.9% charge!  So this directly contradicts what I was told via webchat.  And clearly, I would never have agreed to the contract if I had been aware that I had been misinformed.

Are companies permitted to lie to people about the price they will pay?  Surely not?  Or is the law even more of an ass than I originally thought?

What in God's name is going to happen this winter with eyewatering energy prices?

Energy price cap will rise to £3,420, then £3,850 in January (2023)

I wonder what the hell will happen come October.  I think it's likely there will be  mass non-payment of energy bills. Not merely because of the effectiveness of any concerted action to withhold payment, but simply because many people simply won't have enough money. So by necessity they won't pay.  People have to be able to feed themselves.  It wouldn't surprise me if they were riots if the Government don't take sufficient action.

I'm hearing very little indeed from the Government.  We (the UK) are going to get Liz Truss as our PM.  Her solution is to cut taxes.  But if you have a sum of money to help people, then it's a colossally stupid idea to give the lion's share of that cash to wealthier people, since these are the very people that don't require help to make ends meet.  And, of course, many of those on Universal Credit and other benefits, and many pensioners, don't pay income tax.  And come January energy prices alone will be close to £3000 extra compared to 18 months previous to that.  Something somewhat more than tax cuts is required.

I first talked about energy price increases and the calamitous consequences almost a year ago. And this in March.

Going back in time and inhabiting my 15 year old body

I'm just wondering what I would do if, say tomorrow, when I woke up I bizarrely found myself in my 15-year-old body back where I used to live in Wolviston Court Estate, Billingham. But I have all my present memories, my present intelligence etc.

After getting over the complete shock, what the heck would I do? I couldn't tell anyone, at least not at first. It's absolutely, completely unbelievable. And is it temporary? Or permanent? Do I go to school (Northfield Comprehensive)?? I can't even remember what time school starts! Either 9am or 9.15am. I remember where to go, though — the registration class. Would my friend at the time, Gary Dix, think I am being a bit weird and strangely intelligent when I start talking? At that age I was starting to talk about all the things I do now -- the Universe, God, life after death etc. But my thoughts have somewhat developed since then!

Do I go to lessons? First thought is obviously not, I nick off and explore this world of 1977! On the other hand, it might be fun to attend school for at least a day and give the teachers a piece of my mind. I could explain to Mr Lonsdale, my physics "O level" teacher, that he is naively pre-supposing our physical theories depict a literal state of affairs and it is difficult to reconcile this supposition with the underdetermination of theories by evidence i.e for any macroscopic state of affairs a unlimited number of theories can be dreamt up employing wildly differing entities to explain that state of affairs. Yep, see how long the condescension by teachers towards me lasts!

Then I'll nick off the next day and forevermore after that (assuming this is a permanent state of affairs, and I'll continue to exist in my 15-year-old body). I should be able to use some of my knowledge of the future to make money. But how would I affect the future? There's the Butterfly effect.

Oh yes, and I would go over to Andrea Stark and tell her that I'm not gay! 😂 (I found out a few years ago that she thought I was gay at the time).

The increase in the price of food from July 2021 to July 2022

I thought I would calculate how much food prices have increased in the past year. These are some of the food products I bought from either Morrisons or Sainsburys. I've only included those products that are identical. I haven't deliberately chosen the one's that have increased the most, I've just included those foods I could actually find. In all cases, for those products that continually cycle up and down in price, I've always bought at the low end of the price cycle, i.e., so-called "offers". 

So, as an average, the price I pay for food at supermarkets appears to have roughly increased by 15% in the past year. I do not know how that compares to the official figures. Obviously, it might be the case that the food I've included increased disproportionately compared to average food price increases. But I doubt it will be wildly inaccurate. So, for instance, I doubt claims that food has only risen by about 10% in the past year that I've heard bandied around (although that might have been around a month ago, and prices are relentlessly sharply increasing).

A quick comment on "Defending the Soul".

I've just read this. 

Defending The Soul

It was hard work reading this. The author needs to learn to communicate in clear English. And it's all just a confused mess from beginning to end.  Just a couple of comments.

He says:

If one is forced to believe a soul is a separate form, that it has its own identity and personality, then of course Sullivan’s assumptions may have some merit. But this assumption is at best, based on a reductionist, materialistic view of science.

I'm not sure what is meant by a soul if it doesn't have its own identity and personality. And how on earth does the author imagine that such a conception is based on reductive materialism?

He says:

The reality is that we are all a sum total of all memories.

This is the standard materialist assumption, so why on earth someone who believes that our essence is a soul would have such a belief is beyond me. I think he's been influenced by materialists and he hasn't understood what is being claimed here. His understanding of personal identity and anything else philosophical is as bad if not worse than even that of the author of The Soul Fallacy!

And all this evidence for an afterlife is an irrelevance. If the original author's (Bill Sullivan Ph.D) arguments work, then at the minimum, they make an afterlife an extraordinary claim if not outright refuting an afterlife. But I've already in my own fb group partially addressed the article the author of this article is addressing. Go here: My thoughts on Souls: It’s Time We Give Up the Ghost

I was actually thinking of writing my own blog post addressing Bill Sullivan's article.  But I think that would be largely redundant, since I've addressed most of his arguments in my own The many Fallacies of "The Soul Fallacy"

Swearing at work

 

I love this car!

 

Look at that!  Gorgeous! I want one!  Facebook where I obtained the picture says:

The Ten Most Beautiful Cars in the World. 1933 Duesenberg SJ Arlington Torpedo Sedan body by Gordon Buehrig

The Duesenberg SJ and SSJ model were the Bugatti Veyrons of the 1930s: big, powerful, expensive, and, by the standards of the day, outrageously fast. This 1933 SJ Arlington Torpedo sedan, with body designed by the legendary Gordon Buehrig (who also designed the Auburn Speedster, Cord 810, and Continental Mk II), was built as a show car for the 1933-34 Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago. It was nicknamed "Twenty Grand" because of its price $20,000, a staggering sum in Depression-era America. Ironically, in today's money that's the equivalent of about $366,000, considerably less than the Arlington Torpedo is now worth.

In 1980 it was named Best of Show at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. In the late eighties, the car was selected to be exhibited in Essen, Germany, as one of the 'The Ten Most Beautiful Cars in the World.'

People keep claiming Boris Johnson did well in combating the virus.

So, Boris Johnson announces his resignation today.. thank God.  I do not understand why though, many members of the public and Tory MP's keep claiming that Boris Johnson did well with combating covid.  It's the exact opposite!

He should have taken radical action back in late January 2020, as I suggested at the time.  But he failed to implement any measures at all (so far as I know) until late March!  Then he took no precautions at all to prevent getting the virus himself, and indeed seemed to be deliberately trying to get infected with it.  In this he succeeded, and nearly died.

Then these lockdowns kept being imposed, but by then the virus was rife, and all it achieved was to put a lid on the spread of the virus, only for the virus to spread unabated once the lockdowns were lifted.  And he won't have had anything to do with the development of the vaccines.  

People just repeat each other, they never think for themselves.  The notion that Bojo did well combating covid is simply preposterous.

I need to let go of my ego

I need to let go of my ego and simply be myself. I do not need to impress anyone. I do not need to prove myself to others. I do not need to pretend to be that which I am not. One's exterior persona is a false facade. I need to banish all petty aspirations.  By doing this, my authenticity will be enhanced.

Let us lose ourselves in the moment. Experience our own beingness -- the very rawness of our being. Not be distracted by trivialities. Silent the fearful mind and enter into an empathetic assimilation with all beings, all things.