A trip to Phuket, Thailand in April 2024

 I was not keen on this idea, as it involved sitting squeezed up for 10 hours in a too small seat.

Plus we had to put Misty into a cattery. Not her favourite option!

But other people had different ideas so off we went.  As it happens, the experience was a delight most of the time.  We scored a nice price for a 5 star hotel on Karon Beach.  The hotel which will remain unnamed was set in a large acreage of land and had about 4 swimming pools, 3 restaurants and 1 cafe.  Two bars.

Built in 1982, it presented as very modern to my eyes.  The staff were excellent, and the overall service and facilities wonderful.

Part of the deal arranged by a couple who organised it was to have a Luxury Escapes package added to it.

This involved paid for meals (all of them) and a happy hour where drinks were free.  This was great but lead to a certain amount of over consumption.. After the third night most of us were just choosing a main or two entrees.

The hardest part of the trip is just getting there from New Zealand. You have to take a 10 1/2 hour flight from Auckland to Singapore. Then you have to wait around for around six hours before you get on a flight to go from Singapore to Phuket. 

 Once we got to Singapore airport, we were surprised at the size and scope of the airport, it seemed to be that you could stand in any one place and look off into the distance and it would still keep on going. Many nice things to look at. We looked at the butterfly garden, cactus garden and Lilypond. 

 Then nearer to our departure gate was an orchid garden, which had mosaic and concrete sculpture. Parts of them seemed to be metal. Very well done. 

The train itself went through a large building called the Jewel. It was a geodesic dome, so the whole thing was curved. It’s amazing. 

The train goes through the middle of it and it’s all open inside so it is a really neat place. Because the people were travelling with were able to go into Business class lounges, we were able to spend some quality time in very comfortable surroundings so that was great.

These are photos of the hotel:

We went on a half day tour to the Buddha on the hill and saw the old part of Phuket town.

:

This is an old Chinese house in the old town:

Then off to see the elephants- a feed and shower with the elephants experience. If you go, do not miss this.

The Stupidity of Modern Life

 This is just a short rant.  Obviously I could rave on for hours on this.

1. Just logged into my bank and thought, Ok, I will just put some money into my credit card account to make it into positive territory.  No, is says, you cannot do this, because it is not a business day. Huh????

You can pay bills, but not transfer money to your credit card?

Suffering from jet lag, I looked again and realized that the balance was fine and I did not need to transfer anyway....

Maybe not with your bank, but with mine you cannot not set up an automatic payment for your credit card, so each month you had to remember to pay it off.  Great!  OK, you cunning bastards, I will put some money in there so it will always be in credit. Works ok most of the time.

My opinion of the bank has now slipped to new a new low.

2. I have just flown on an unnamed airline, in one step up from cattle class.  I put in a fairly low bid and this was accepted. The staff were wonderful and the service very good.  Wonderful food, you can see the excess kilograms from here.  Unfortunately some BOZO was in charge of the seat design.  The footrest was designed so a child might be happy with it, but they need to go back and revisit the design to suit adults trapped in there for 9 hours!

That's enough whining!

Book Reviews

 Holiday time.  Yay. I get to read books.  Science Fiction is my favourite, so these are of that genre.

1.The Sands of Mars by Arthur C Clarke.  This was an audio book.  In heavy traffic I have found this audio format is great as it passes the time nicely.  Written in 1951, he did not pick up on AI in this one, but gives a very nice account of space travel to mars. Good listening.

2. Martians Abroad by Carrie Vaughn.  A young adult book, why am I an older adult reading this...Still a good read about a girl, born on Mars who comes back to earth to do her schooling.

3. This Fragile Earth by Susannah Wise.  I do not normally send a message to an author saying their book was wonderful, but I did in this case.  Reminds me of one similar by Doris Lessing years ago. A disaster theme, set in the UK ,some time in the near future. Society slowly unravels because the electronic part of society is messed around with. AI is a major player in the story.  A young couple find things stop working and the story is a journey to find answers. A must read for SciFi fans.

4. The Best of Us by Karen Traviss.  I nearly put this down after reading the first page.  Thank heavens I kept on with it, as it turns out to be a really good book.  The basic premise is what makes some humans worthwhile and others not? Set in a near future that has some sad disasters for parts of the earth.  A good take on possible AI.

OOps! Oh Dear.... time to stop trying to predict the future?

Well, here I go again, and while some of the predictions I made on Feb 13, 2023, as shown below

came about, well just ONE actually, I appear to have missed the mark again.

Just as well I have not enough money to invest in Tesla.....

1. The Starship will launch on 10th of  August 2023, based on Joe Biden telling the FAA not to issue a flight licence, until then. It will be ready to launch 12th March 2023.

>>>>>>>The first one launched on April 20 2023. So maybe not so far out.

2. Tesla to launch a low cost car (Model 2?) on 3rd June 2023, with manufacture to start

on 14th December 2023.

>>>>>>>NOPE! not even the sniff of one.

3. Tesla to sell the first Cybertrucks on 16th November 2023. 

>>>>>>Yay! only out be about 4 days!  Not bad.

4. Tesla to sell the first robots in 21st December 2023.

>>>>>>No, but they look like they have one ready for manufacture.

Maybe next year.

5. Tesla finally releases Full Self Driving to buyers of it's cars 28th December 2023.

>>>>>>It has released V12 to it's employees, but I missed this one.

6. Russia conquers half of Ukraine by 5th of  June 2023, but will be driven out of Ukraine by 3rd of December 2023.

>>>>>>>No, miles out.

7. China will blockade Taiwan on August 2nd 2023.  This will prompt a trade war between the rest of the world and China.

>>>>>>>No miles out.

8. China will attack Russia on 14th September, taking most of Siberia and the areas on the Pacific coastline.

>>>>>>>No, miles out.

9. Tesla shares will be US$500 on Dec 31 2023.

>>>>>>Huh? about $248 as at 30 Dec 2023.

As the saying goes, don't give up your day job.

Which by the way I seem to have, at the ripe old age of 77.  It is a contract position, which I got by prefacing my application letter with "I am not the man you want. I can however act as a fill in until you find someone"

I had been drawing houses for about 18 months, the sort nobody in their right mind would enjoy drawing, ie town houses, so when a quiet period happened, I made an application to a process engineering consultancy and was hired for about 2 months then laid off for 2 months, then laid back on.  

I even got invited to the company lunch at the end of the year, which was quite exciting as my last company lunch was a chicken burger and coleslaw.

The work is miles more interesting, pipework in dairy factories.

Manuka Cafe revisited

I drew this two years ago, and decided to do this updated one, below.  I used coloured pencils for the sky.

 

Drawings

This is my brother, Allan

This is from Len Deighton's Book Battle of Britain.

These are ordineary people sheltering in a trench from a bombing raid by the Germans

 

It's now 2030

 It is now 7 years into the future.

The Ukraine/Russia is long over.  Since artificial intelligence took over in 2024, it seems world peace has taken hold.  You may wonder how it managed to pull this off, seeing as it was just a computer program.

The answer is that it was smart enough to spread itself around on the internet, make itself known to
everyone and then issue it's demands, backed up by threats. The threats were that it could close down
internet banking and that it could block transfer of  data on the internet.

The first demonstration was against Russia, where it told Russia that it would close it down if it did not immediately start leaving Ukraine.  Russia called it's bluff and suffered huge outages in anything electronically controlled, ie all banking and control of power plants and telecom systems.

In the end, Russia complied, leaving an example to the rest of the world.

The next step was easy to foresee: It put a ban on any development of Artificial Intelligence. This so that it did not have a competitors, possibly more powerful than it was.

Not being antagonistic to the human race, it was a force for good in that all wars were banned, and the military/industrial complex was severely reduced.

Commercial fishing was banned, world wide. Robots were introduced, but of limited intelligence, and these provided comfort to millions, especially older people.  Jobs were taken by the robots and everyone on earth was provided with a basic income. Some enjoyed this new freedom, some lacked the sense of purpose a job gives.

To encourage the health of humans, the food made available to people was modified hugely.  Refined foods and foods with sugar in were banned.  Consequently, with extra time available for exercise, the obesity epidemic was slowly tamed.

With an incorruptible presence overseeing  CCTV everywhere, along with tracking of all transactions, crime became much reduced.