• June 16, 2025
• in practicalli
• 9 min read

Getting hot

The United Kingdom is heading for another heatwave.

Continuing to train for a cycling trip at the end of the month. Lots of Yoga and a long ride at the weekend. Finding some interesting routes for training.

GitHub sent an email about charging the Practicalli Org. Investigation revealed a change in that GitHub started to meter usage of user accounts and Organisations since March/April 2025.

I am starting to collect my thoughts about AI (and dig up information about software agents I researched back in 1997). An interesting aspect of AI is the relationship that people are building with AI, both positive and in some cases a little disturbing.

Listening to "Welcome to the Pleasuredome" by Frankie Goes To Hollywood, specifically the anti-war song Two Tribes, reminded me of the early 1980's and the deep concern about nuclear war, which seems to be an increasing risk at the present time.

The toppling of US-aligned governments in Iran and Nicaragua and the Soviet-Afghan war drove a significant increase of tension in the cold war, as make prevalent in the UK by the government's protect and survive public information campaign.

I remember watching the file Threads, an apocalyptic nuclear war drama which they actually showed us as school. The family in the film was very similar to my own when they were younger, so it did have a significant impact. After watching the film I realised how ineffectually the protect and survive information was.

The current near term risk to nuclear war being the violence over the continued land grab in the middle east, driven and masked by fear and hatred that has been there longer than everyone currently alive today. All this propped up with certain people using the politics of popularism to their own financial advantage.

The longer term risk of nuclear war of course being countries fighting over ever dwindling resources, e.g. food and clean water & air, due to disastrous changes to the climate of planet Earth driven by unsustainable human activities.

The 1980's had many songs that covered the darker part of humanity, often in a subtle way that people listening to the songs didn't realise (or want to realise). Here are a few examples I remembered:

• Luka by Suzanne Vega was quite a harrowing picture of child abuse and how
• Every breath you take by The Police which is often though of as a love song and was in part about stalking and part authoritarian 'Big Brother' control of the people
• Russians by Sting was a commentary on the dangers of the 'Mutually Assured Destruction' doctrine pushed by the governments of the USA and Soviet Union. The song also inspired in part the nuclear war story of the Terminator movies.
• Everybody wants to run the world decries peoples desire for control and power, often at the expense of others. The song originally titled 'Everybody wants to go to war' so reflecting aspects of the cold-war. The song also hints at humanities lack of respect for the environment.
• In The Air Tonight by Phil Collins venting the frustration, anger and despair that so often accompanies divorce. A very poignant song personally as my parents had a very tumultuous divorce at that time that greatly affected me for many years.