willedoo

It's been said that these Russian 'Turtle' tanks are becoming more common. It severely restricts turret movement so they must be getting concerned about their tank losses.

So far I think their casualty rate is ten times the total in Afghanistan.

I was listening to Nightlife on the ABC radio and the presenter had a lengthy three way conversation with Bill Browder and Professor Paul Dibb on the state of the Ukraine/Russia war. Paul Dibb said he was expecting it to be a long war which could run for several more years. As it stands, it's over ten years since the start of the conflict in Crimea and the Donbass and more than two years since the start of the full scale invasion.

2 hours ago, red750 said:

Got a reply this morning. He has been working 12-14 hour days and hasn't had a chance to get on the forums. He says he's fine.

Thanks Peter, great to hear he's ok.

Still no sign of onetrack. It will be three weeks tomorrow since he was here, and almost as long since he was on the other site.

There's been a lot on the radio lately about criminalising coercive control. It would be a tricky one to legally set a line there, but in general the intention is good. I have seen it years ago in a couple of my friends who have long since divorced. Coercive control was the biggest factor in that marriage failing.

2 hours ago, old man emu said:

t is just that having had to deal with DV in the past, and that was before the widespread use of Speed, there was always some sort of addiction that caused problems. Ever heard of a golf widow? Times change and addictions come and go. I wonder if alcoholism is as prevalent amongst the 18 - 35 group now as it might have been 50 years ago. Isn't the addiction of choice nowadays based on stimulant drugs?

If you wind the clock back far enough a stimulant drug like methamphetamine was rare in the general recreational drug use community. In the 70's for instance, there were the pot smokers and heroin addicts in the regular use category. Back then, speed was really only prevalent among interstate truck drivers and their use was mainly limited to just taking enough to stay awake and do their job. The pot smokers were usually too stoned to be violent and the heroin addicts were only a small percentage and mainly concerned with just getting the next fix. Drinkers made up the majority in DV cases, but the grog would only be a primary cause in a smaller percentage of cases. I think the grog was more of an enabling factor in people with underlying frustration and aggression. These days the use of speed derivatives is so widespread that the numbers are showing up in DV cases just as alcohol once did and still does.

I don't know enough about methamphetamines to comment on whether it can turn a normally peaceful person violent, but there are anecdotal stories of some ice addicts being violent.

All ex presidents are entitled to Secret Service protection for life. At one stage they sunsetted it to something like 10 years for all post Clinton presidents, but Obama reversed it and now they are all eligible for life long protection. If Trump did go to the big house, it would have to be in a secure section with 24 hour Secret Service oversight. Bubba would be disappointed.

It would be interesting if he was jailed to see how Secret Service protection would work in a jail environment.

I'm having a mixed degree of luck changing my email address in various accounts. I thought I'd successfully changed it over in Facebook, but not so. It's allowed me to add the new email address but won't let me delete the old one and they are still sending email notices to the old address. The problem is my internet plan has dynamic IPs, not static. Every time I connect I'm assigned a different IP. That makes Facebook think I'm logging in on different devices. For security reasons, they say they will only let me change the email address after I've logged in a few times on the same device, which is never going to happen.

The photo of Pierce Brosnan is of him in character for an upcoming sports drama. Added glasses, hair made to look thinner, different hairstyle etc..

https://people.com/pierce-brosnan-unrecognizable-playing-prince-naseem-hamed-trainer-movie-photos-8639080

One of the first things I did when I got Windows 10 was to uninstall onedrive.

12 hours ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

Yet, many men find it alluring when a woman smokes in a particular way.

Blowing smoke rings in a Bangkok bar always creates a bit of male interest.

2 hours ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

Getting back to the violence in  sport that may be a catalyst to other violent behaviour in society - take a look at this:

 

 

Lachie Neale is pushed to the ground and it is called a dive; he is constantly physically challenged off the ball, and that is a good look for the game.. But, kids are looking at this with the commentary dsaying it is fine and Lachie Neale is diving when there looks to be a clear push off the ball.. I love the game, but that sort of shit should be eradicated from it regardless of whether or not a dive was taken. I can' t think of too many sports that, whiole being more violent on the ball, allow that off the ball stuff to happen.

It sounds like AFL needs a good shake up. That sort of thing in NRL would result in being sent off to the sin bin,and being put on report for the match review committee to make a penalty decision. A six week match ban possibly.

Cook was one ship with 100 men on an exploration mission with no brief to stick around, so I'd say 26th. January. That was a fleet intending to colonise. I can't see Cook as any more of an invasion than the French landing in W.A..

Pierce Brosnan.

Another option is that he's away from home somewhere and doesn't have his computer. He might be like me in that I can't log in or access this site on the mobile phone. It's the laptop or nothing. I can use the phone as a mobile hotspot to access via the laptop, but can't do it solely with the phone.

His last post on the other forum was April 14th.. I think he is normally fairly regular there as well.

I wonder what the technology is like these days for removing tattoos if they decide later they don't want them or some of them. There's a growing trend these days among young women to get small, perceivably (in their eyes) cute tattoos. The ones I'm referring to are not full inked, just fine outlines. Things like their grandmother's initials, a small cowboy boot, little stars and dots on the back of their hands and stuff like that. It's less disfiguring but some girls don't know when to stop so it can get to the point of looking like graffiti. You would think those small, fine outline scribblings would be reversible to an extent.

Quite often the process of getting more and more tattoos is linked to the influence of peers and becomes a joint fashion thing. A person in a relationship with someone into tattoos can start going down the same path if their partner and a lot of their friends are getting them. I don't know how factual it is, but some say our Celtic ancestors had a lot of tattoos.

Admin would have an email contact probably. It's concerning. He's a regular on here and is usually only not heard from for a couple of days at most. It was two weeks yesterday since he's been on here, very much out of character. He was flying to Melbourne on the 7th of May I think to pick up a truck, but even if he'd brought that forward, he probably would have contacted before leaving.

18 hours ago, old man emu said:

I have Clipsal RCBO220/30S devices which are compact and efficient devices designed to enhance electrical safety in residential settings.

I looked them up and they are very affordable. It looks like they screw flat against the wall.

https://www.sparkydirect.com.au/p/Clipsal-RCBE220/30S-20AMP-RCBO-1P-N-4.5kA-Resi-MAX

I had the earth leakage unit at the meter box trip once. I was jackhammering a hole for a shed pole with the electric jackhammer and didn't notice it was rubbing the power cord between the jackhammer and the side of the wall. I was soaking wet from sweat and got a small boot similar to a 12v electric fence for a split second before the power tripped.

5 minutes ago, red750 said:

Many players such as Wally Lewis in NRL and Danny Frawley AFL are high profile cases of CTE.

I didn't know Wally Lewis had it until I read about it recently. I knew he's had epilepsy for quite a few years. In the NRL, the head injury assessment process is getting stricter all the time. Not much gets past the Bunker. They can tell the Ref to send a player off for assessment if he misses the incident. I think the time will come when those soft helmets will be compulsory.

Another thing in NRL that has helped cut down on fights is the way the sport has grown financially. Clubs have the money to invest in good players, so players move around a lot between clubs. The end result is that a lot of opposing team members have previous history as members of the same team. You see it a lot at the end of a match. Players who look like mortal enemies during the game are patting each other on the back and doing the huggy thing at the walk off. A lot of opposing team members are good mates behind the scenes. State of Origin also acts as a blender of players.

Once upon a time, you could play up after hours, get drunk in pubs and get into fights and still have an NRL career, but not now. Players are contracted with behaviour standards in their off duty life regulated as well. Break the rules and the club can break the contract and sack the player. Cleaning up the game is a consequence of more money coming into the sport. Big sponsors don't like the old ways. Sponsors = money = power over the clubs to regulate the players they contract. It's also in the club's interest as they are all trying to grow financially.

For anyone who hasn't watched an NRL match for a few years, it's a different game these days. Continual rule changes, the addition of the Bunker as authority and heavy camera coverage has cleaned it up a lot. The Biff is long gone; it's years since I've seen a punch thrown. An on-field blue these days consists of a couple of blokes or three grabbing each others jerseys and swearing, with a bunch of other blokes trying to calm them down. One punch these days could be career ending with long suspensions culminating in the end of a half million dollar player contract.

As far as play goes, the occasional debatable thing escapes the Ref and Bunker cameras, but as a whole it's heavily scrutinised and regulated. Tackle rules have got to the point where it's getting increasingly hard for players to effect a legal tackle. The way we were taught to tackle at schools is banned now.