willedoo

Watches are the one part of Soviet flight gear that I don't have. I always intended to collect a couple for if I ever get around to setting up some pilot mannequins. A friend of mine in the U.S. recently bought a Raketa Baikonur, 60th anniversary of the 1st manned space flight in 1961 edition of their 24-hour cosmonaut watch. It looks like a nice watch, but a bit out of my price range at a guess. Some photos of the type:

I'm on the way to sorting out the lack of VoLTE issue in regard to the 3G network closing soon. I shopped around and found a dealer on evilbay selling phones, so I bought a Samsung Galaxy S10e. It's second hand but has a two year warranty which may or may not be worth the paper it's written on. The good thing about the 'e' model it is the small size; it's basically the same size as my old S5, so it won't spend it's life trying to escape from pockets. I'll miss the old S5 physical button in the middle bottom section to wake the screen up, but this one can wake up by setting it to wake up with a double tap to the screen or when you pick it up. The other method is tapping the power button but that's like a game of hide and seek so not a viable method on this phone. To turn on VoLTE, you have to go to settings/connections/mobile networks and set it on. The only problem is that there's no mobile networks option in connection settings. I haven't put a sim card in it yet, so I assume it has to have an active sim for that setting to appear.

I can't figure out the new hairstyle Trump has been sporting lately. The top of it is flat like he's been standing underneath too many helicopters. His clown comb-over is a complicated array of angles and directions at the best of times, but I think this one takes the cake.

The stainless square section have a classy look. Phillips head screws on a verandah deck make it look like a packing crate.

This low res screen shot reminds me of the photos of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan with long columns of BTRs carrying troops. It's the Russians withdrawing from the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. More meat for putler's Ukraine meat grinder. This might be a make or break year for putler. The Russians are slowly advancing in Ukraine, funding for the Ukrainian side is slowing, the world is distracted by Gaza, and in an election year, the Americans are fighting each other. The icing on the cake for him will be if Trump wins. A likely scenario is a Trump win= a putin win. On top of all that, the IMF is tipping the Russian economy to grow more that any other advanced economy. It's all there for putler to take if he plays his cards right. It would explain his renewed confidence lately; he knows he might finally have a chance of getting away with it.

I'm on NBN fixed wireless. The internet works good as the tower is only about 1.5 klm away. As far as the landline is concerned, I never use it. I don't even know what my own number is as it changed when it went to the NBN fixed wireless.

That looks like the kero heater we had when I was a kid. The hot water system ran off the slow combustion stove. The fridge was originally kero, then we got a gas fridge and a small gas two burner stove to supplement the wood stove. Power was a 32 volt generator run by a single cylinder Southern Cross diesel. I've still got the generator and 240 volt inverter but not the Southern Cross. It was a luxurious life once they ran the electricity down our road. No more hand cranking that old diesel. And we had a heap of empty wooden power cable spools to play with. They made good outdoor tables as well.

If he did that he would run the risk of the Israelis renaming Trump Heights, the subdivision in the Golan heights named in his honour. They might even take down the Golan Eagle memorial they erected to suck up to Trump. Donald would probably be happy with a few statues of himself.

I still say it's kleptocracy combined with authoritarianism. The state taking over private enterprises for the select few in government and their cronies doesn't have much to do with communism. For sure, under communism government officials did alright for themselves compared to the peasants, but it's a totally different type of theft for the elite these days. The people hardly get a razoo from it. A small pension when they are 65 if they are lucky. It's surprising how many Americans still think it's the Soviet Union. Mind you, Americans are not the most well informed people when it comes to anything outside their own country.

spacey, once you are over the recovery period, those core strength exercises help a lot. I don't know what the 'take it easy' period is for a re-bore, but with the prostate biopsies I've had, I was banned from strenuous activities for six weeks post op. Mainly for the risk of recurrent bleeding I think.

Jerry, I'm just curious as to the context you meant there in regards to putin's regime being communist. Russia officially abandoned communism more than thirty years ago, as we all know. It's often described these days as a kleptocracy which is probably fairly accurate. The only things about the Russian Federation where I can see some hangover from the communist days are the authoritarian control of the population and the high percentage of state ownership in various enterprises.

Cordless power tools have been a big advantage for thieves these days.

Nev, that's a very accurate take on it. They're square now and very little damage done. If Israel attacks Iran in response it would be nothing short of stupidity and arrogance. It would be intentional escalation.

Remember Bob Marley and the Wailers. They had a thing about Zion and were always singing about it. Whether it was just a Bob Marley thing or across all Rastafarians, I don't know.

On the subject of customising browsers, I always prefer the dark theme. I find it a lot easier on the eyes. The green 'JS' icon on the URL toolbar is called Javascript Switcher, one of the add-ons you can get for Firefox to toggle Javascript on and off without having to do it in browser settings. Very handy for getting around paywall sites and getting rid of annoying advertising pop-ups. Javascript switcher is good as it disables Javascript only on the website in which you disable it. You can go back to other tabs and they are not affected. If you leave Javascript disabled on a site, it remembers and will be disabled in future browser sessions. Some other Javascript switcher add-ons are not so good as they disable Javascript globally across all sites you visit which can be annoying, but Javascript Switcher only disables individual sites you select. I wouldn't be without it.

My grandfather used to buy cartons of apples and use the individual paper apple wrappers as bum fodder. The paper was a green colour and the texture of modern day baking paper. Very scratchy. But to celebrate the positives, it was better than a stick.

Trump acts like a complete moron a lot of the time, but I can't see how a moron could attain so much power. I think he has deep seated personality disorders and mental health issues, but I'm not sold on the stupidity part. I think he's smart enough to know if he acts like moron, morons will follow him (and vote for him). It's as if he's banking on morons outnumbering non morons come election time. When you see how his followers carry on at his rallies and public appearances, it's obviously a cult following. They don't care about the content of what he's saying. All they want is the weird stuff - the facial gestures, the idiotic dance, the strange incoherent sounds of his voice and the continual playing of the imaginary squeezebox accordion. All he has to do is make a weird sound or gesture and people cheer like crazy. It's scary stuff.

The lock should go through both the rack and the handle.

I finally worked out the update problems I've been having with Firefox browser. For a long time it hasn't been able to update via the browser update notification, so the only way I've been able to do it is to download the new version from the Mozilla website and install it. The only problem with that is that it wiped the new version back to default settings which creates a lot of work to re-customise it. I've now figured that part out. When you launch the new setup, there's a check box checked by default to reset to default settings and delete all add-ons. All you have to do is make sure to uncheck that box before proceeding. I hadn't updated for a long time because of that issue, but it turned out I should have gone to Specsavers.

A bit more on the perpetrator. https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/joel-cauchi-wasn-t-right-reservations-raised-about-killer-before-bondi-junction-attack-20240414-p5fjnh.html

They say he grew up in Toowoomba. As far as being a migrant, I don't know whether his parents migrated or not. It's a Maltese name but there's also a lot in France by that name. Some people on social media jumped the gun with some BS that it was an Islamic terror attack, which then unleashed a multitude of anti-Muslim posts. The ironic thing is that the only male killed was an immigrant Pakistani Muslim security guard. He died trying to protect people.

Speaking of shit carters, I remember seeing them when I was a kid. My mother's parents retired to the Gold Coast and the dunny men used to come and get the drum full of dark ends from the thunderbox in the back yard. There was no sewerage connections back then, maybe a few septic tanks. The dunny men used to hoist the drum up on to their shoulder where they wore a type of leather apron to stop the cans rubbing into their shoulder. What a shit of a job. My grandmother used to leave some tall bottles of beer out for them at Christmas.

The version I grew up knowing was 'flat as a larrikin's hat'. I don't know how that one started. Maybe larrikins had flat hats back in the day.

I remember Scotty from Marketing's foray into TikTok during his dying days as PM. Very cringeworthy.

It's such a large platform and for politicians, governments and organisations, it reaches a huge audience. Unfortunately none of the other alternatives that hoped to take over from Xcrement were able to gain a significant footprint. I think everyone was hoping some other platform would take over the mantle, but alas, not so. It seems to be so big and entrenched as a major information site that it's hard to escape. It's really gone downhill since that nutcase has been running it, but there isn't much in the way of competition. I had a look at Mastadon but thought it was a clunky piece of work; I don't think it will catch on in a big way.