willedoo

The Russian assaults on Avdiivka appear to have slowed down a bit in the last few days. They've lost a crazy amount of men, armour and artillery in their attempts to take the town. In one day they lost over 1,300 men, a record loss in one day since the war began. The rumour mill has it that putler has ordered the rest of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts to be taken by the end of the year. If true, he must be looking for some sort of victory to sell to the people.

That banjo in the clip is a five string banjo. Standard tuning for them is open G which is GDGBD. Open G tuning on a six string guitar has the sixth string tuned to D, so it's DGDGBD instead of standard tuning EADGBE. Keith Richards uses open G tuning on most of his guitars and removes the sixth string completely to get it out of the way, in effect making them the same as a 5 string banjo. It seems to work for Keith.

I originally picked the microphones and the music overdub. I thought there was something odd about the dog but didn't look at it close enough to see the splice. Rewatching it, I could see the little dog appear from the middle of that short post.

Looks perfectly fine to me - except the bassist's half inch rope is slightly out of tune.

Ukraine's first use of the ATACMS has yielded some good results. While the numbers aren't rock solid, sources geoconfirmed with high resolution satellite images put the number of Russian helicopters damaged and destroyed at 21 in the attack on Berdyansk and Luhansk airports. Also destroyed was a radar station and possibly a Pantsir air defence system. An edit to the previous post, the ATACMS variant supplied to Ukraine is the older M39, not the M39A1 as previously stated. The M39 is inertia guided and has a shorter range of 165km compared to the GPS guided M39A1 range of 300klm. On the plus side, with less propellant taking up space, the M39 carries 950 M74 bomblets compared to 300 in the later A1 variant. It makes sense for the U.S. to get rid of their older Block 1 ATACMS that are nearing expiry. The Americans would be more comfortable with the shorter range and the increased payload equates to more effect per missile. The M74 bomblets work as blast and fragmentation, so would be very effective for taking out parked aircraft with 950 per missile.

It's hard to figure out Comrade Musk. He bought Twitter for 44 billion and now it's valued at 8 billion mainly due to his idiocy. On top of all that, he's now contemplating blocking Europe from access because he doesn't want to comply with the EU's Digital Services Act, which came into effect in August. The Europeans don't like his enabling of propaganda, disinformation and bot accounts. He's totally incapable of running a social media platform. I think he should just walk away, cut his losses and go back to bludging money from the government to build rockets. At least he had some respect doing that. Since buying Twitter he's turned into a Trump wannabe buffoon.

The Enfield Bullet comes to mind.

Indian had a deal to import Royal Enfields from England and from about 1955 to 1959, they rebadged them and made some modifications to sell the Indian Woodsman, Westerner and Tomahawk. It's hard to say exactly what the bike in question is. Most likely a customised hybrid. The engine is Indian badged and it has the frame type seen on the Indian Woodsman, but the headlight surround of the Tomahawk. It has the higher exhaust pipe as seen on the race version Westerner. Perhaps it's an Indian Woodsman with a custom pipe and seat and a Tomahawk front end. Either that or someone has done an Enfield up to look like the Indian (motorcycles, not the country) version by adding the engine badge. Or put an Indian badged engine in it.

I saw a short video clip of a Russian truck convoy that had been hit by HIMARS launched M30A1 rounds. The M30A1 is the one that contains 180,000 BB sized tungsten steel balls, designed to eventually replace the cluster munitions. As an anti-personnel round, it looks to be more effective than the cluster munitions judging by video evidence. The M30A1 blast seems more contiguous and concentrated. All the video I've seen of the cluster munitions hitting Russian troops gives the impression of inefficiency and a sloppy blast pattern. The sub-munitions seem to hit everywhere but where they are required. From the circular blast pattern, it looks like you would need several cluster munition rounds to achieve the effect of one M30A1 for use on personnel. The M30A1 is also very effective on non armoured equipment like the truck convoy as well. It doesn't destroy the vehicles, but the giant shotgun blast effect riddles the vehicles with BB sized holes. The most effect seems to be flattening of tyres and perforation of fuel tanks. It won't totally destroy a column, but will disable it and stop it in it's tracks. On the subject of missiles, the U.S. press reports 20 ATACMS missiles have been sent to Ukraine. At this stage, it looks like they've only received the cluster munition variant M39A1 which carries 300 M74 bomblets. They hit Berdyansk Airport with them on Tuesday night, and while some claims of 9 or ten destroyed helicopters might be true, satellite photos show 6 destroyed. The ATACMS the Ukrainians really want is the M57 which is GPS guided and has a single 500 pound penetrating high explosive blast fragmentation warhead, same as the US Navy's Harpoon anti-ship missile. These would be the bridge and bunker buster missile the Ukrainians need but they will probably never get them.

I've been there; it's easy to get there. Just turn east off Claude Road on to Paradise Road. It's only a few kilometres east of Promised Land.

It was once a dream of mine to build a Norvin. It started when I saw a photo of one with a Black Shadow motor at Phillip Island. I got as far as obtaining a Featherbed frame but never tracked down a Black Shadow engine. I can't remember whether the frame was a slimline or wideline, but I kept it for a few years and eventually sold it. The Norvin with a Black Shadow engine and the boy racer gear was pure bike porn to me back then.

This one fits the thread title 'Further Effects of "The Voice" debate' perfectly. The Queensland government had plans to initiate the process of treaty with Aboriginal groups in the state and had the bipartisan support of the LNP opposition. In light of the referendum results, the LNP have today announced their withdrawal of that support. The opposition leader gave the reason that after seeing the national division caused by the referendum debate, he didn't want to see the same thing happen in Queensland in regards to treaties.

It's just people being people, overthinking the whole blame thing. In reality, it's very simple. The Aboriginal groups wanted Albo to try to implement the voice, so he agreed to put it to a referendum if he won government, making it an election promise. He did everything he was asked of, end of story. This was a gift for Dutton. I think they call it wedge politics. Once the referendum was announced, Dutton knew they had Albo wedged between a rock and a hard place. It was either suffer a political defeat or break an election promise made to the Australian public, and in the bargain, break his word with the Aboriginal people and lose their trust. A win/win for Dutton either way. Any early talk from the Libs about how the government should abandon the referendum was just weasel words for the media and the punters. To the Libs and Nats, holding the referendum was the best thing since sliced bread and a great political gift from a wedged Albo. Albo is not dumb. He would have known all this and calculated which of the two options (go ahead or break his word) would cost him the most political skin. In my opinion he made the right choice and stuck by his word. This will eventually blow over and politics will move on to the next big thing, but if he had broken his word it would follow him around for years.

That hit home recently when I was looking for a power steering hose for my Rodeo and realised there's no Holden dealers anymore. Had to scratch around Repco and Bursons for after market parts. The nearest hose Bursons could find was 2,000klm away in Melbourne. Some of that after market stuff can be a bit dodgy like that hose was.

The Russians are using barrier troops the same as they did in WW2. Any forward troops trying to retreat or surrender come under fire from the barrier troops in rear positions. If they are close enough, they shoot at them, if further away, they redirect their artillery onto their own troops. Most of the cannon fodder troops sent into forward positions are conscripted prisoners or ethnic non-Russian minorities conscripted from the regions. The regular and contract troops don't give two hoots about them and see them as expendable. The cannon fodder gets sent in first so the Russians can see where the Ukrainian fire is coming from and then shell their positions. If the Russian cannon fodder survive to take a position, then the Russians send the higher quality troops in to hold the gained ground. The cannon fodder don't have much chance of a mutiny as they are very lightly armed compared to the regulars behind them. If they attack forward they get killed, if they retreat back to their lines they risk their own troops killing them, and if they are spotted trying to surrender the same thing happens. They lose a lot of people that way but from their point of view, they are emptying their jails and getting rid of minorities and saving their higher quality regular troops. Note that higher quality in this context doesn't mean high quality as we know it. To them, anything higher than low is higher quality. Edit to the above: 'ethnic non-Russian minorities', meaning Russians who are not ethnic Russian. Groups like Tatars, Buryats, Ingush, Yakuts, Tuvans etc..

I saw recently where the Ukrainian sappers said they had encountered anti tank mines that the Russians had booby-trapped by placing a grenade underneath. Specifically done to try to kill the sappers when they are de-mining.

Regarding the Ukrainian summer counter-offensive, there's a lot of figures given of the amount of area regained, but not much mention of net gain allowing for the Russian gains in territory. According to the Belfer Center at Harvard, Ukraine made a net gain of 8 square miles of territory the month to Oct. 10.. The way that reads, it's a figure for a one month period. It would be interesting to know the net gain figure since the start of the summer campaign. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-says-russian-forces-improving-positions-along-front-line-ukraine-2023-10-15/ Meanwhile the Russians are throwing everything but the kitchen sink into their attempt to take Avdiyivka on the outskirts of Donetsk city. There's been reports of big losses of men and equipment by the Russians. A lot of it has been a result of armoured columns bunching up on limited access points and being hit with drone directed artillery. It just goes to show how hard it is for either side to make major advances. At least Ukraine learns from experience. They tried the frontal assault with armoured column tactic at the start of their summer campaign and came to grief, so have abandoned that and are concentrating on the attrition of Russian forces and their logistics. Their only way forward is to weaken the Russians to the point where they can then advance. The Russians on the other hand, haven't learnt, and are still trying major armoured assaults across narrow roads and minefields that are under Ukrainian fire control and drone surveillance. The Russian defeats at Avdiyivka are a rerun of last year's failed assault on Vuhledar. Battles like what's been happening at Avdiyivka where Russia expends large amounts of life and equipment for little tactical gain surely must be a political decision made in desperation for a victory to announce to the Russian public. Either that, or the generals really are incompetent. I don't know how accurate this chart is, but it compares the daily artillery fire rate of Russia and Ukraine and shows Russia's fire rate dropping below that of Ukraine for the first time since the start of the war. It could mean Russia is low on ammunition and conserving it, or that they are short on replacement barrels for their artillery, or a combination of both.

It looks like the national average was 60/40 on the state count. On today's AEC figures, the state no vote from highest to lowest is: Qld. 68.61%, SA 64.45%, WA 63.43%, TAS 59.47%, NSW 59.37%, VIC 54.79%.

octave, I'm just wondering whether you're getting Jacinta Price and Lydia Thorpe mixed up. Lydia Thorpe was against the voice because she thought it did not go far enough, and she is pushing for the treaty option. Jacinta Price's main public reason for opposing it is because she thought it would divide the nation along the lines of race. She's a born and bred conservative Liberal and most of her views on Aboriginal policy are about law and order and ending welfare dependency. She rejects any white privilege narrative and is highly critical of any left wing views on Aboriginal policy. Jacinta Price is the polar opposite of Lydia Thorpe. Price is conservative with a capital C.

There will probably be a bit of that. People in countries that have a race biased constitution will probably have some moral credit to critisise us for not having the same, but people in countries that don't have a race biased constitution would be a bit hypocritical to critisise us for being the same as them. I think most critisism would be on an individual level and not on a governmental level.

Based on the ones I've known over the years, I doubt it. Like mixing oil and water.

I blew up a battery on a small Case dozer once. No fire, but the bang was as loud as a shotgun blast. It split the battery casing vertically on the corners as well as splitting the top. That was caused by my idiocy, connecting jumper leads in a non safe sequence. The positive post was a bit loose and venting gas. It wouldn't have happened if I'd done it properly and made the last connection on a vehicle earth on the starting vehicle instead of on the crook battery.

I see what you mean. I got about half way through but the presenter was started to grate so I aborted the viewing. One thing he said was that diesel doesn't give off white smoke when it burns. Fair enough, but if you see white smoke coming from anything soaked with diesel, it means it's just about to explode. I saw that first hand one night when my brother blew his eyebrows off trying to re-light an already warm combustion stove with copious lashings of diesel on the kindling he'd put on top of glowing coals. It wouldn't have blown if the stove was dead cold, but the pre-heated fire box was an ideal combustion chamber.

Like Bitching Betty in the aeroplane.