Video Editing Software

Out in the world of computers, there has been Nerdist current for decades (Nerds are good). I have spent an hour or two trying to find some video editing software because the free Google App I used to use has been retired.

I found a few free Apps out there but with conditions (trial periods, watermarks, only online etc). All the big names are out there. But, I don't want to pay a monthly subscription or an extortionate one-off fee for something I am going to use rarely. So, I went looking, and I found VSDC video editor. I did think about using Movie Maker from Microsoft, but I need just a little bit more oomph.

As GIMP is to Photoshop, so VSDC is to editing videos (Tech Radar rates it 4 stars). It's a project run by nerds. You get a fully featured video editing suite. If you want to get the professional version you can, but if you are unsure and or just dipping your toes in then this software is for you, and it shares a heritage with all those Shareware gurus that in the dim distant past (the 1980s) made the wider world of computing more accessible, more friendly and grew the base of users, until we reached the point we have today, where everything is monetized, everything requires a subscription, or your most personal details ... or the blood of your firstborn.

If you are willing to put yourself in the hands of people that make great software because that's what they enjoy doing. Then look a bit further than the off-the-shelf stuff, and support people that are interested in making great, accessible rich software, not £billions.

I shall let you know how I get on with it as time goes by.

Video Editing @ videosoftdev.com/

Tech Radar Review (2018)

Title repeated verbatim (Tracking water storage shows options for improving water management during floods and droughts).

I genuinely don't understand how first-world countries manage to get into severe drought conditions in terms of potable water, and essential water for agricultural purposes.

In the UK for instance, we have had two years of spring drought in the south and yet, to coin a phrase `You need to grow webbed feet to live in the North West'. Climate may affect weather patterns and precipitation, but when an estimated 92k-litres of fresh rain water falls on the roof of every house in the Uk annually, and when you have land and technology to create reservoirs (and potentially a water grid ... thinks canal network upgrades), the issue is no longer one of the environment but becomes one of planning, investment and the will to plan and invest.

If nothing else this article proves that common sense is not common.

Tracking storage options droughts

The Joe Rogan Experience (Afghanistan and US Intervention Policies).

In this video, Joe Rogan posits a TinFoil Hat conspiracy theory. I have commented as below.

I think as tinfoil hat conspiracies your one is weak (no disrespect intended). I would argue a more tinfoil hat conspiracy would be that the US has left Afghanistan, and left vast hoards of weapons behind deliberately to arm the Taliban in the hope that they travel to western China to demonstrate their displeasure at the CCP's treatment of Uyghurs.

It seems insane from this distance that the Taliban would consider the US a greater threat to Islam than the CCP. As a thought experiment, drop Israel out of the US/Middle-East equation and then look at the US/Middle-East relationships. Where are the pinch points between the US and the greater Muslim world? Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, and yet the greater Muslim world is far larger than that, extending as it does into the Indian Ocean and South Pacific region. I don't think I'm wrong in saying that the US trades with almost all countries that are predominantly Islamic globally (If not by political systems, just as an over-arching religious denomination).

Why then would the Taliban see the US as their main enemy, when right on Afghanistan's border lies the CCP's territory (I don't want to say China explicitly because clearly, the people aren't necessarily the party), and the CCP, is by dint of `alleged' forced sterilisation of Uyghur women (amongst other measures) effectively removing an entire generations ability to reproduce. That is exactly how species become extinct, that is eugenics and genocide.

The conspiracy then is: Allow the Taliban to have advanced weaponry, and nudge them in the direction of the CCP's territory in hope that the CCP gets caught up with cross border insurgency, and is stymied by the kind of terrorism that the US and Europe have suffered for decades.

PS: Love the show.

Joe Rogan (Afghanistan and US Intervention Policies) 

Russell Brand on the `Alleged' Covid cover up (Better known as the lab leak hypothesis).

It's very easy to get caught up in the mele surrounding Covid. It's politicized, has been used as a lever (is being used as a lever, politically and socially and probably many other ways too). On all sides there is culpability, clearly, America outsourced looking at Bat viruses to China. China took the money and ultimately did a shoddy job. 4.5million people have died and that represents a lot of eggs on a lot of faces. No one wants the bill for that in the courts, and no one wants to put the CCP over its knee and spank it with some artillery, in spite of its overt aggression elsewhere.

Like the virus itself, containment of hostilities is the current game. So now we find ourselves in the position that it's actually not in any official person's interest to get to the bottom of things and apportion blame. I don't want to say `we are where we are', but I'd be an idiot not to say it. All we the people can do is let those in control know that the system they use to hold secrets resembles a colander and the truth will out. That truth may be denied by the arbiters of powers, however, if you apply Occam's razor, all the evidence suggests The Wuhan Institute of Virology, made a mistake, the local CCP then went on to compound and confound that mistake (probably for fear of the party rather than the response of the wider world, paradoxically). 

Conveniently now, attention has been dragged kicking and screaming away from Covid to Afghanistan, where I rather suspect the next level of proxy war will be battled out online. Covid will fall off a cliff unless an actual `virulent' variant emerges. And thanks to the mainstream media's perverse handling of the CCP's misinformation as truth because `Orange Man Bad'. They too have so much egg on their face, it's far better to sweep `cause' under the blanket, and find a new crisis to see us through to Autumn, in the hope that vaccination ends Covids dominance of the headlines.

 Russell Brand on the `alleged' Covid cover up.

Obesity research

Another fascinating article. I keep a fairly close eye on this sort of material. Obviously, obesity is a massive issue (no pun intended) for individuals and healthcare systems. With the recent focus on gut flora and fauna deficiencies, it seems that the contention that obesity is the product of a sedentary lifestyle and greed may be far wide of the mark. 

Moreover, there is early-stage research that suggests poor or deficient `good' gut flora may be allowing the proliferation of bad gut flora, which may, in turn, be releasing neuro-chemicals into obese peoples bodies, that make those people ingest things that feed the bad gut flora. 

The consequence of this is that a person gets obese, and may not have any real control over the process because they are being driven by a parasitic third system.

I will try and find the article and post a link to it. 

Neuro-immune-interactions-deep-fat