Coffee Space 
Firstly: Merry Christmas to all, and fingers crossed for a Happy New Year!
Secondly: Apologies this article is so delayed. I have found it more challenging to write here during these times - something I need to address.
This is a continuation of the Christmas message I started last year. Again Christmas day has happened and we prepare for the new years, I look to review some subjects I discussed previously, set some new goals and make some more predictions!
Again this is a review of this year from my perspective - as you may see the points are very similar to the previous points made.
Last year I was able to report that I was able to lose 20kg. This year I can report that I lost an additional 60kg or so on the keto diet - and am feeling a lot better for it. The journey is far from over, but I need my mind during the final leg of my PhD and it costs a lot to live like this!
I would say that keto is well worth your time if you find yourself in a similar situation - but really not that easy to commit to. If you go down that route, be prepared for a life of struggle!
This was likely one of the single largest success stories of the previous year.
Absolutely any issue with the vaccine will result in people becoming afraid to take it. I believe something like 40% of UK medical staff said they did not want to be the first to take the vaccine due to fears of it being rushed.
As I predicted last year, there has been massive amounts of vaccine hesitancy and it has affected the roll-out.
Despite seeing multiple Countries jump onboard vaccine passports and mandates, including New Zealand, we are seeing that places are now starting to have to back down. A surprising name on this list is California of all places.
This has been slow, but milestones are being met. It has been a struggle to get here so far, things have been crawling at a snails pace at times.
I have a massive target for the end of this month, in which case I need to have a viable path for the rest of the PhD, which will be approximately June. A hell of a lot needs to happen in this time and it will be all hands on deck.
This should be implemented, but I suspect more problems will happen, especially with France and the fishing waters. It’s still unclear about what happens in Ireland, but I know the UK will fight tooth and nail to stop any kind of border being created.
France basically got 99% of what they wanted with fishing rights, then still ended up throwing a tantrum. Ireland ended up being ‘okay’, although this is really yet to fully play itself out. Luckily the UK left itself some Trump cards, as well as leaving a ‘nuclear option’ on the table for negotiations. Had Theresa May still been negotiating for the UK, she probably would have removed such options 1.
I suspect the EU could possibly be showing signs of collapse. Of the top three economies in the EU (Germany, France, Italy), only Germany is financially doing well. I really think that anti-EU sentiment is growing and if Brexit turns out to be successful, more Countries could be tempted to join.
The EU is in really bad shape. This may actually end up turning them towards China of all places. Speaking to friends in Germany, France and Italy, each have large anti-EU sentiment. French President Macron was apparently quoted as saying that the French would have Frexit if they got the same leaving deal as the UK got.
Bare in mind, post-COVID, all of the strongest EU nations have some almighty bills due. Thank God the UK left when it did, otherwise we would also be stick with such a debt.
Trump will peacefully hand over the keys to the white house, Biden will become the next president.
It was a little rocky, but there was no insurrection as claimed. Trump asked for recounts and investigations, as were his right, and the right of any person operating in a fair and open democracy. He did fire up his supporters too much, but he also called for peace via Twitter, which ironically is what got him banned.
The January 6th Capitol ‘armed insurrection’ were for sure much more peaceful than the Summer of BLM “mostly peaceful protests”. As has been pointed out, the people who entered into the Capitol building took selfies, queued in turn, joked with officers and took a shit on Pelosi’s desk (which is admirable). Not a single person who entered was carrying a gun, armed only with American flags.
By advice to anybody who disagrees with this - watch long footage rather than clips of the January 6th protests.
All of the people who were violent in any form are having the book slapped at them, which is what should happen. Those who acted peacefully were acting fully within their right to protest. They were given the charge of “refusing to leave a government building”, but were never formally requested to do so - so not even that charge is real.
There will of course be ~50% of the US population unhappy with the result, but the Republicans will accept the result in the end.
The Democrats so far have been awful victors, and their obsession with Trump will be their downfall. He is living rent free in their minds despite being out of office for a year now and in this time, Biden has been forced to re-enact his policies and has screwed up everything he touches, including his addresses to the American people.
Biden will likely be soft on China, enforce national lockdowns and start a war/military presence in another Country by 2022.
Biden largely stepped down the trade war with China, which has won him nothing. The problem is, he has screwed the economy so badly that he cannot afford to enter into a dispute with any Country. America’s military is currently essentially disabled despite claims to the contrary. Their enemies will realise this soon.
This is precisely when having good allies is important, but Biden pissed off the French with the submarine deal, pissed off the Canadians by cancelling a large oil pipeline project, pissed off the British on multiple occasions, pissed of the middle East by undoing Trump’s efforts in the area - he’s got no allies to turn to. I don’t think he can even count on his own drug addict children at this point.
It’s still unclear to me whether a global collapse will happen, but I highly suspect it will all depend on China at this point. It’s well known they fudge their numbers, but the problem is they also bailed out much of the debt back in 2008. If market confidence in China collapses, it could cause a global recession.
I think I quite accurately predicted that China’s CCP were fudging their numbers, with one of their largest property market developers Evergrande defaulting. There is zero reason to believe that the rest of the property market is in any better shape at all.
The point about global recession still stands, China swapped bubble money for slightly less bubble money. The Chinese banks were instructed to increase foreign reserves considerably, which is a risk aversion strategy in the case that the Chinese economy collapses.
Watch this space.
The following is some background on projects I have been working on:
#anime tag. A version 2 of this system is in the works, but I don’t yet have time for it. The goal with be to add a proper database, decentralise the system entirely using modified RSS and make it run even faster.I’ve simplified the goals to a list rather than the paragraphs I had last time. This time I want the goals to be simple and measurable (I was somewhat inspired by the Linux Unplugged Christmas episode).
The following are my goals over the next year:
Those are all of the goals I can think of for now!
I believe my predictions were pretty good last time! I will make some more predictions going forwards:
Let’s hope for a great 2022!
Remember, Theresa May tried to take the ‘no deal’ option off of the table during the original negotiations. The point of having nuclear weapons is not to use them, but to have the ability to use them.↩︎