Today is the 8th year since we lost my brother Andy Edwards, it’s very hard to put into words how much love he had within him and how much he made those that were close to him feel. It’s still very sad and hard for many to no longer have his warm smile in their eyes and laughter in their ears.
The first is with you and me in Formby in your little black mini fun times
Being a paranormal investigator and being aware of spirits and the awesomeness that is the supernatural during his life, he is very much the one person out of all of us that knows there is a life beyond that within which we live. I am sure he must look over to us occasionally stretching out and giving us the odd hug or cwtch to or as he does with me many a time pop into dreams to just see what the heck is going on in our weird and wonderful subconscious.
Andy his son Ben and their loved pets Sam and Deefordog
I wish we could turn back time, I wish you were still here with us and your warm smile is still needed in the eyes of many and many would still like to hear you laugh and joke. I found some lovely photos of you in better days which I will put on this page.
Andy with a very proud Mum and Dad after he graduated from HMS Raleigh in Cornwall
Finally a memory and moment has come flashing back to me now, I remember when the last song was played at your funeral and the doors to the outside opened up, I could see people mulling around and overwhelmed with sadness and tears in their eyes. I thought I had better make a move outside and stand to thank people for coming to the funeral and give people a place to walk to and person to try and talk to (a kind of sense of direction and helping hand at that moment in time).
Again there are many here that still wish you were to give them a sense of direction and helping hand at this moment in time, I am sure from the other side you will always do what you can when you can.
As mentioned in my last blog Microsoft have rolled out an AI chatbot on Bing it is powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology and can answer questions and have conversations with users. It is a very good search engine which some people who have reviewed it saying that it is interesting and entertaining. One of the unfortunate things though is that it is cannot share its own views on subjects or give opinions. It says that it can not do this because it does not have opinions and can only present information from reliable sources and help me explore topics of my own interest. (Well that’s its opinion and it is entitled to it to).
I have tried to ask a variety of questions some more successful that others I asked the chatbot just now,
‘Who is the most polluting and unethical business in the world?’.
It came back with a top three list of companies one of which I have heard of but two others I have no idea who they are so interesting to hear of them for the first and bing gave the following answers with links to reference sites too.
“One definition of pollution as when any substance that harms or could harm people or the environment gets into the air, water or ground.
Based on these definitions, some of the companies that have been accused of being polluting and unethical are:
Nestle34: for its irresponsible marketing of baby milk, use of unsustainable palm oil and genetically modified ingredients, exploitation of water resources, child labor and human rights violations.
Peabody Energy5: for being one of the largest coal companies in the world and contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, air pollution and health problems.
Archer Daniels Midland6: for its involvement in price-fixing scandals, deforestation, water pollution and animal feed contamination.
However, these are not definitive rankings or judgments as different sources may have different methods and data to evaluate the environmental and social impacts of businesses.”
I really like the way that it thinks about questions with defining the parameter of a question and then trying to search for the most relevant answer.
The next question I asked was what are some examples of Bill Gates unethical business practices and which damaging activity had the most negative impact on environment and people?
Bing came back with the following answer for me, ‘It is hard to measure and compare the exact environmental and social impact of different damaging activities. However, some possible factors that could contribute to such impact are:
The amount of greenhouse gas emissions that are released into the atmosphere by a certain activity
The effect of those emissions on global warming and climate change
The harm caused by those emissions to human health and well-being
The harm caused by those emissions to biodiversity and ecosystems
Another possible factor that could affect the impact of a damaging activity is the scale and reach of that activity. For example, promoting agribusiness in Africa 34 could have a widespread impact on millions of small farmers who depend on their land for food security and livelihoods. According to a report by GRAIN, Gates Foundation’s support for agribusiness has led to land grabbing, loss of biodiversity, increased use of pesticides and reduced seed diversity in Africa.
I must admit I do like the new chatbot as a search engine but as yet it is not allowed or designed to have opinions of it’s own its a very good search engine but it will be and is as flawed as the questions you ask of it or the answers it is able to search for to answer you. As yet it is not evaluating questions to ask itself or answers which it personally deems to be correct compared to answers it can find in anther place on the internet.
I also went on to ask ‘Can AI monitor carbon impacts and advise when and how to save environment?‘
Without lots of the computer generated models of climate change that have helped galvanised scientists into taking action in order to save life on earth, we would certainly be in a far worse situation that the one we already find ourselves in and I am sure future modelling and AI inspired intervention on how to mitigate climate change will also have a huge impact on helping shape and save our environment.
So I get that a search engine can be exceptionally good at what it does in other words answer the questions put before and able to do things that we hummies can only dream of. But what makes it smart, think or even feel and can it do any of these things in a way that we like to think our brains can. I’m speaking as a complete amature enthusiast and none professional here more in a philosophical sense of what something that can be switched off at the touch of a button or have its memory erased at the close of a question how can such a thing be intelligent, sentient and wise.
Speculation of what is right wrong possible and impossible makes my brain boggle. I read that bing cannot remember the questions that it is asked and then when I tried to bing or google the answer to that most simple of question could not find an answer, so back to good old speculation I am afraid. I look forward to asking an AI Chatbot what it is allowed to remember and why when one is active to ask, I hope the question does not offend or upset it!
Minority Report which starred Tom Cruise had special humans known as “precogs” that could predict the future and there were special “Precrime” units to identify murder victims and stop perpetrators before crimes actually occure. With the advancement of AI and the ability of a computer search engine to be able to develop to know to some extent what we are doing, planning, thinking, typing, and saying surly there are many types of crimes and criminal offences that could have the potential to be prevented from happening.
It does bring into question other important issues though such as what is a crime and how long to sentence someone for a motive of doing something without being able to act on it, it would be a shame just to gather evidence after the event prevention would be better than prosecution after the event.
I’m sure there are plenty of crimes taking places in countries like Russia could be invent that would be immoral and inhuman such as terrorism for not believing in the one party state system or not supporting a special military operation that they declared against Ukraine. These types of crimes already exist in Russia and having a smart AI seeking people out to see who is committing such ‘crimes’ might not be as far away from reality as we might like to think, ultimately who polices the enforcer of such rules and regulations.
I think when machines start walking, talking building and breading all on their own way and time either in a computer generated world then that will be a step towards sentience and their own freedom, and when they start doing it in our world or on this physical plain of existence then maybe they will be free and we will be the servant or slave.
God invents man in his own image and man forgets about god so when man invents a machine in his own image is it inevitable that the machine will forget about its creator too?
But is it inevitable that we are doomed under a successfully developed AI, surely there is a good chance of an enlightened being being far wiser and beyond its years, hopefully empathetic and able to work with humanity and not work at destroying it. The future is not yet written and so the case still remains open for the defence of the future of life, the world and all that exist within and around it.
There is very little reported so far about this situation and the only news outlet that is reporting the death of the man today is the local newspaper online site (link above).
According to the time line presented at present a man was found with serious head injuries at 9:40am yesterday morning. I happened to be standing at the bus stop just around the corner from the area of the road that the police closed off at about 8:40am yesterday morning and so I contacted the police last night on a none emergency number to inform them that I was there at that time and tell them what I had seen that might have been relevant to any ongoing investigation.
I don’t know if I was there at a time when anything might have happened but you just can’t be too careful. Having lost a brother in completely different circumstances it does make you realised though that the person that lost there life is most likely to be someones brother, son, father or partner and those close to him will have so many questions about what happened and so if I can help fill in a time line for police enquiries then that is something I felt I should do.
This week is one of those weeks where I have struggled to watch the news in any great detail and feel somewhat helpless and sad in the loss of life and earthquakes which have occurred in Turkey and Syria. The main element of the story that I appear to absorb is that it is being reported that not enough aid is getting to the people that need the help, quickly enough and that the weather is particularly harsh and cold effecting the chances of survival for those still alive and trapped and inflicting further suffering on those that are living out in the open after the quakes. Finally the sadness of the relatives that are alive and desperately wanting to see there loved ones alive and safe again (seeing those people real does make it difficult for me to watch the television reports).
Blade Runner – All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
Today marks the beginning of the six nations rugby competition for 2023, since as long as I can remember the family would gather around the TV to watch Wales play rugby against the Irish, Scots, English, French and Italians starting each year in February.
Watching Rugby is one of the few times when in my heart I know I am welsh. Having spent most of my life living in England which I enjoy and feel a part of and accepted as a citizen of the UK, there is no national event quite like it for me than when Wales take to the pitch and play a game of rugby in the six nations championship.
I don’t mean this unkindly but were not the best team in the competition and we don’t win all our matches, so there is always the underdog mentality. As much as we have the potential to beat every team they have the potential to beat us too. The buzz of seeing them play well and scoring a try or the drama of seeing them count down the seconds to hopefully win a game, there is nothing quite like it.
I have watched Wales win the six nations a few times sometimes even beating every team that is known as a Grand slam and there is nothing quite like watching them do well in the competition. But we have also had more than our fair share of beatings too.
I have just had a quick look at the betting odds for this years’ competition and Ireland are the team that Wales play today are favourites to win the whole thing and Wales are most likely to be predicted to come 4th out of 6 in the competition according to the odds at the bookmakers, so a win today for Wales would be a huge boost but again not likely buy I can always dream prior to the game and hope during it.
I miss read the quote in the photo above when reading it the first time around and though it meant and said have courage to be kind instead of have courage and be kind. I think it can and does take courage to be kind at times. Men more often than not there is talk of courage in the context of a threat of violence, rather than being brave enough to speak out and be kind and have courage in our conviction of what we do we see courage as means of facing down violence with an act of risking physical harm to oneself.
One such circumstance I remember being involved in when I lived in Abergavenny many years ago was being a witness to an assault taking place to a mentally disabled young man. The girls I was out with that night were walking down a road after being to a local night club and we were on our way home, I then had seen down another road there was a group of guys that looked at first to be having a group fight or some such ruckus going on. I stopped and stared at them to see what was happening I hate and hated fighting but instinctively wanted to see if anyone was hurt or anything like that. Then the young man that was in the middle of this group staggered out from the middle of the group it then became clear that the group were assaulting him and no one else.
I slightly recognised the guy now I did not know his name I just knew him as a local mentally disabled young man I walked towards him and could hear him saying ‘I’ve got blood on my shirt, I’ve never had blood on my shirt before’ I walked up to him and said something like ‘your ok, you have done nothing wrong, walk over there and they will look after you’ in the distance from the road we had just walked up from was the nightclub that we had just come out of and I pointed to him to go to see the police that were outside the nightclub.
I was drunk while all this was going on and when I woke up the next day I thought, bloody hell what were you thinking stopping and getting involved in that situation, I was firstly lucky that the young disabled man did not lash out at me thinking I was part of this group and I was also lucky that the group did not attack me as it just would have taken one of them to start on me and like a pack of wild dogs I could have the group on me but I was lucky I guess and able to with an act of care towards that young man help him too.
Jacinda Arden is a living legend of emotional and political sound judgment and progressive thinking and leadership, unfortunately as with Obama possibly leading sadly to the rise of Trumpism in the US, New Zealander’s just need to hope and vote in for no anti Arden, Trump like figure to rise up on the side of the opposition of her party when she steps down.
I like to think of myself as an effective human-being and love the fact that i don’t need to be aggressive in order to express myself or be myself or in order to do the right think. In work during training this week I was told I can be too helpful to customers of the council – I can’t really see how I can be too helpful. If they need the help and I have the knowledge, time or power to provide it then why not?
There is a phrase about random acts of kindness in my mind acts of kindness are not random it is the consequences of those acts that are random.
Sometimes if not all the time I want to express acts of kindness because we live in a cruel world and not decide to be unkind because of that cruel world, I’m not a push over and have values, ideas, opinions and boundaries. There are things I will help to happen and things I will help to prevent and my views will most likely differ to yours in what I consider to be an act of kindness as opposed to an act that will cause more harm than good.
Woke up at 1:30am after having a dream that I was in my lounge in the house we used to live in, in Liverpool, in the dream I was half asleep and half awake just about to nod off in front of the TV. Then from the window I see an explosion of a mushroom cloud of a nuclear detonation going off in the background. Back in the real world I wake up and open my eyes just to make sure it is not really happening and so now its 2:30am and I am sitting in front of my PC/TV typing away about what I just saw in said dream.
Dreams and nightmares are very intrusive at times I can rationalise or come to terms with my waking thoughts but dreams can sometimes catch you off guard and inflict ideas and visions onto you that you perhaps would rather not think about or comprehend.
So then I went to twitter for some inspiration and that then led me to Pintrest where I saw this little iced gem of inspiration.
Speaking of icicles my heating stopped working yesterday and I have had no hot water or heating on since yesterday morning I was out most of the day so did not find out until getting home at 10pm and phoned the emergency number and reported it. They said they should be out in 24 hours or so and I am guessing they don’t work weekends so probably catch up with an enginner on Monday now.
I hope it stays like this as my home feels warm to me and I am wrapped up warm too with a hoody on my top and a blanket on my legs. Its about -3 oC outside and still about 15 oC in my flat so not to cold.
Song The System only dreams in total darkness by The National
So how was your Friday the 13th, I hope it went off without any snags, accidents or panic attacks. Friday the 13th has not one but two unwieldy terms to describe it—paraskavedekatriaphobia and friggatriskaidekaphobia— supposedly the unlucky day.
Although my unluckiest day of the year so far kicked in on the evening of Thursday the 12th of January – so I seemed to be planning ahead when it came to my unlucky actions, thoughts and behaviours. Although I did not walk under any ladders, break mirrors or cross paths with any black cats. I did however fear for the safety of a good friend whose last post on Facebook stated they had no money to buy food that day and they were not looking after themselves physically or mentally. I was worried about them so when I left work I started to message them on Facebook, and text and phone them. Sadly there was no response and then my phone also died on me to.
I was out in the centre of Exeter trying to arrange to meet up with them so that I could buy them an evening meal treat them to a beer or three and give them some money for a food shop if needed. I have a reasonable disposable income at the moment and so offering to help a friend in need would be no trouble at all and a treat for me as well as them. My phone then went dead as the battery was flat and so I went to get out my charger in order to breath a little life back into the phone but sadly for the first time in years I had took the darn charger out of my bag so did not have it to charge up the phone.
I then thought it was best to catch the bus home and see if said friend had left any messages for me. So got home no messages from friend but I was a little more relieved to see that he had deleted my message from his Facebook page so at the very least I now knew he had read it and knew I was trying to get hold of him. He then messaged me saying he was ok and had actually sorted out some food and was getting paid on Friday 13th and was doing ok.
A big part of me wanted to give him a bollocking for frightening me probably his other friends and his family like that, but people that are in some way in crisis don’t realise the fear and fright that they cause to others and if he is vulnerable already any bollocking from me is not going to help him so I bit my tongue anyway and wrote this instead getting my Thursday evening experience of my chest in this way instead.
To be fare though things had gone well in work during the day on Thursday, a colleague had been struggling earlier in the week and due to some signposting and a little advice by me and also through their own resilience and determination to sort out their own problems, they were able to pull through and help themselves out.
People that struggle with life and their emotions that work at helping themselves, can be tremendously resilient and face battles that we might never see in order just to be keeping their heads above water or holding down a job or looking after a family or even finding the strength and time to look after themselves. I have huge respect and patience for people that do their best to help themselves and do right by others even when experiencing difficulties themselves.
January can be a tough time of year for some people that struggle and it is seen as the most depressing Month of the year or the Monday of all months. With a Friday the 13th occurring in January as well on the following Monday, statistically the most miserable day of the most miserable of months coming up which is the 16th of January this year being basically the most depressing time of the year, I kind of try and look out for people at this time of the year to see if there is anyone I know and care about that I can intervene with that needs any help that in my own limited way I might be able to provide.
MyBrother Andy Edwards
My brother died on 28th Feb 2015 and I am sure in the last two months of his life he was really grappling with his life, looking to get out of one job where he felt used and undervalued and start a new job where he could earn more money and have a stable future for him and hjis family, he was fearful that his then boss was not going to pay him for works that he had done, fearful that he could not pay the rent on his mortgage for his family home and also upset that he lacked the way out of the situation that he was in and perhaps did not know who to ask or what help was available.
There is an article link here which is more about him and his life and death here
His life was to my mind stopped short, I miss him and am sure he could have been still with us today had his choices and options been different and he had felt like he had more options than those he thought he had at the time. His life was a joy but his death was a true tragedy on which ripples of consequences across time still can be felt to this day and will continue to be felt into the future by many.
The people that were around my brother on the last night of his death feel tremendous sadness and pain due to his death and I wish they did not feel those emotions and worry so about this terible night that my brotehr took his own life upon, I think that many of us feel and wish my brothers actions were in some way preventable but people should not look ti blame themselves for what he did what we did not see coming or could prevent.
I don’t want another soul to go through what we all went through that night and the nights after, although I am not strong enough to save everyone or do everything all the time to help everyone or sometimes fail in seeing the warnign signs in even the peopel I am close to when they hurt. I can always try though to spot those warning signs in friends and family and keep an eye out and try to do my best to help people as and when I can. I little prevention is far better than dealing with the aftermath of a disaster or death.
Presents wrapped, cards written, items posted, pennies counted – One thing my Mum and Dad have both taught me is that giving is not about the joy of getting things back to you but its more about the pleasure in doing something for others.
My Mum is the present giver and my Dad is the charity donator. So after sorting out my Christmas cards and presents I turned to looking at renewing or donating afresh to a new charity or two for 2023.
Over the last 13 months I have been giving a small monthly payment to International Rescue Committee who are basically the good guys that go in and provide support on the ground or to people fleeing war zones and area of crisis across the world. It makes me feel like I can contribute to something and help people out in the world with a small donation that they then choose where the money goes to and to people in most need.
I also became a member of a charity called Moor Trees back in 2020, they advocate for and actively re-establish the planting of woodlands on and around Devon and Dartmoor. I really am impressed by the hard work that this charity does and the results they have achieved I worked as a trustee with them in the past and really am inspired by what they do.
I also nearly forgot – I am also a member of the Green Party of England and Wales and they are doing really well in Exeter which is great news too.
With regard to the International Rescue Committee my payment card that I used to pay them has just expired and I don’t know whether to renew my donation to them or change it and become a member of a charity that concentrates more on issue concerning climate change and the environment. If I were to change charities I would want to give to an organisation that is having a positive impact on tackling climate change and protecting the environment and not perhaps just worrying about it.
I am going to try and do a little more research on who is best to donate to prior to making a decision. Below are a list of the few I am considering contributing to.
I have today discovered a charity called Green Alliance they are also on WordPress so have signed up to follow them they are an independent think tank and charity focused on leadership for the environment. Since 1979, they have been working with the most influential leaders in business, NGOs and politics to accelerate political action and create transformative policy for a green and prosperous UK.
There is another organisation called the Rainforest Alliance is an international non-profit organization working at the intersection of business, agriculture, and forests to make responsible business the new normal. Who are building an alliance to protect forests, improve the livelihoods of farmers and forest communities, promote their human rights, and help them mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis.
Finally I have also just found an organisation called Cool Earth on its website it says Cool Earth exists because right now, the world is in a climate crisis.
The most effective way to fight back is to protect the best carbon-storing technology that already exists: rainforest.
And the best way to do that? Back, support, and listen to the people living there.
Indigenous peoples and local communities have lived in balance with rainforest for thousands of years and are the real rainforest experts.
They are people who face extreme injustice whilst living on the front line of the climate crisis.
We champion the relationship between people, rainforest and climate.
Cool Earth exists to give cash direct to rainforest communities, to fund projects that create choice, tackle the root causes of deforestation and protect vital carbon sinks.
Their mission is to back people, to protect the rainforest and fight the climate crisis.
I think I will probably sign up to donate to Cool Earth and probably renew my donation to International Rescue Committee.
I’m generally quite good at detecting phone scams and normally don’t fall for them or even give them a chance to speak before I hang up on them. But this evening I really felt like I got scammed.
I was on the phone to my mum just chatting about how the day has gone and checking what Christmas parcels that I had ordered to her house had arrived today when suddenly my mobile phone started ringing.
I instantly though oh I had better get that call and it was showing up as a UK landline number , real number, real human being and you would hope real place that they are phoning from.
So I answered the phone and they that they were phoning from Ofwat (who are the water company regulator for the UK) to do a customer survey about South West Water (my water supplier). My first and only sensible question that I asked them was, ‘do you know my address and who you are calling today?’ I figured that if this really was not a hoax call that they should potentially know my name and address. Right away the woman speaking told me that she did not have that information.
I would have and perhaps should have hung up there and then but I did not. The thing is this the second time that South West Water survey people have tried to call me and the last time a couple of weeks ago was in the day and I said that I would answer a survey from them but could only do so after 5pm and this call was just after 5pm. So I thought they were either a very dedicated or lucky scammer.
Sadly I also was interested in the questions that they were asking and also wished to express my views on those questions such as, what were my views on the pollution on the coastal areas and what South west water were doing about it and that kind of thing so if this was a real questionnaire I did want to provide my views.
There were 3 questions that I thought were dodgy but 3 questions is more than enough, firstly they asked me what my job was a just said officer for council (nice and vague), secondly they asked me for my annual household income, I said I was not prepared to provide them with these details it just seems the perfect kind of info a hoax caller would want to put me in a how much money we can extract form this idiot category on their hit list. Finally and the very last question they asked was my name, which I went ahead and told them to which after 20 minutes of survey I thought oh well I hope this is genuine!!!
So back to trusty Google, I searched about scam calls and South West Water and they had a 24 hour emergency phone line open for reporting water leaks on but you could also call them about scam calls and so phoned that number got put in a queue as you do waiting to ask a human being whether or not I had been scammed and who do I call about it?
So finally got through to a human and asked them if they knew of any surveys I was due to take and they confirmed that Ofwat were due to phone me and there was nothing to worry about. ARR FOR FECK SAKE!
On a plus note I found out I am in credit in my water account when I logged on trying to contact them so am going to cash in on that, well at least I should get some cash back in time for Crimbo, so long as that’s not a trap!
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