onetrack

A bathtub would make a great steampunk sidecar! 😄 Oh, wait! - the Americans have beaten you! 😄

Trump and the MAGA nutters all claim there's no pollution, and no climate change problems, it's all just made up. Trump believes the Oil Age is going to undergo a renaissance under his leadership. I have news for him, he's flogging a dead horse, and there's no going back to the 1950's when America burnt oil like it was a totally unlimited, almost free, resource.

One would hope it's only a temporary thing and eventually the W.A. Police will go back to not carrying AR-15's. But the unspoken problem is - if those AR-15's were unleashed into a major crowd, what would the "friendly fire casualties" be? The Police assault on the Islamic nutter (Man Haron Monis) in Sydney, resulted in two unnecessary civilian deaths, and that was a close-range assault.

Randomx, sale of a property is best done by professionals, they know what they're about and have plenty of "leads" to buyers. Plus their local knowledge will give you a good idea of what sort of sale price you can achieve. Numbers of people always want "remote" properties, where they can "get away from it all" and set up "off-grid living". But the important part is figuring out where you'd like to move to - and more importantly, what you can afford.

Jerry, one bright spot that's turned the current position better - SWMBO came back from the operation very pleased, because the Doc had avoided a skin graft with a "flap" surgical removal process. This process is used quite commonly now, and many Docs are skilled at it. They make an incision and lift the skin back, then remove the cancerous bit, then pull the flap back and stitch it in place over the area of tumour removal. Done properly, it looks very good when healed. I had the flap procedure done on my face a few years ago, when I had to have a weeping cyst removed from one cheek. It's nearly impossible to see the scars and stitching on my face, so no-one can call me "Scarface"!. SWMBO is home now and resting, no bending over for three days, a need to keep her wound covered in the shower, and back to get the stitches taken out in a week. She's much happier than when she went in this morning.

I was part owner of the Fairplay Gold Mine at Higginsville, W.A. from 1972 to 1990, when the mine was sold to a large gold mining company. The brother, his wife and I mined and produced around 600 ozs of gold in that period, utilising the Norseman State Battery (a 10 head stamp mill, owned by the W.A. Govt). Gold was ignored and only worth around $35 oz when we purchased the mine from two old Slav prospectors. But U.S. President Richard Nixon had taken America off the Gold Standard in August 1971, in a staggering display of non-consultative, "executive" Presidential power. It was called the "Nixon shock", and it rattled the worlds financial markets - and led to a rapid rise in the price of gold, now the gold price was no longer controlled by the U.S. We knew this would happen, and purchased the gold mine accordingly. By 1975 the gold price was $160 oz and by 1980, it was over $800 oz, and there was another gold rush on. At that point, our strategy of utilising an under-utilised and cheap source of ore crushing went to hell in a handbasket, as scores of prospectors turned up at the State Battery to crush parcels of ore. A queueing system for crushing was initiated - but even worse - the Govt imposed a very sharp increase in crushing costs to reduce the State Batteries ever-increasing losses (the State Batteries were always subsidised to encourage local employment, bring in gold revenue, and to assist in prospecting work that might deliver new and profitable mines). At that point, we turned to the large (200,000 tonne) tailings dump on our mine, which still held an average of around 2 grams/tonne of tailings. We took on 3 business partners who had experience in heap leaching and cyanidation of tailings, and between all of us, we developed an improved design of tailings leach vats, which proved very effective and very profitable. The benefit of treating tailings was the ore was already crushed very fine, it just had to be set up with the correct pH levels, be able to contain a cyanide leach solution, and to have a simple circulatory pumping system. The addition of activated carbon in stainless steel tanks finished off the treatment process, and it was a very simple job to set up a small, single-cylinder Lister diesel pump to circulate the solution until the activated carbon was full of gold! Then the tanks would be taken into Kalgoorlie to be stripped of the gold, using a caustic solution, by professional carbon tank strippers. The final product, gold "dore" bars were taken into the Perth Mint, which refined the gold to the Internationally-accepted gold bar standard of 99.999 (%) fine gold. After we had re-treated all our gold tailings on the Fairplay lease, we re-treated many more tens of thousands of tonnes of tailings, from numerous other tailings dumps we had pegged. It was a very profitable period for us in the 1980's. Then, after we ran out of tailings dumps of our own to re-treat, we went on to build tailings vats on contract for other operators that needed to re-treat their tailings. We re-treated tailings and built leach vats for well over 2M tonnes of tailings in the 1980's, from as far East as Ejudina, 150kms E of Kalgoorlie, to Burtville, SE of Laverton, W.A. - right through the W.A. Goldfields, to even Marble Bar! It was a very interesting period, and one that was highly profitable, and not a period I'm likely to see again! The sheer pleasure of holding a large gold bar that you've produced and poured, is something that few people experience.

The Chinese are actually doing their bit, it's reported the air in Beijing is substantially cleaner than it was a few years ago, and it's all largely due to the huge level of Chinese EV sales.

Wow, that's some serious deep corrosion there, Willie! Are you planning on rebuilding it? I use citric acid baths to treat all my corroded restoration items, it works good, and it doesn't damage the base metal, and it's safe to use. I usually leave the item in the acid bath for a week or 10 days, then pull it out and pressure-wash it to see it if needs more treatment. Usually, it does, so it goes back in again for another few days, then back out again for a final pressure wash. Then I make up a mixture of about 10% Ranex (phosphoric acid) solution, put in a spray bottle, and spray it on the cleaned item to prevent further rusting.

It must be all in the stars. Yesterday, I went to mow my 95 yr old neighbours lawn, and his Briggs & Stratton powered Scott Bonnar reel mower refused point blank to start. This is a good used mower I purchased for him about 6 mths ago, and I went over it, and gave it a "birthday" on maintenance, as soon as I bought it. It has run well for that 6 mths. B&S engines rarely fail to run, but nonetheless this one refused. No spark, dead as a Dodo. Took the cowling off, checked all the electrics, decided the coil was RS. Went and tested it - yep, open circuit. Went to no less than THREE mower crowds, before I actually found a crowd with one in stock! FFS, this is a B&S coil, there are millions of B&S engines out there. What's even worse, they ripped me off mercilessly to the tune of $95 for it!! You can buy them from China for $10!! The one I was sold, is made in Argentina! They probably bought it cheaper than a Chinese one! I haven't fitted it yet, because I went to have an annual hearing test just after lunch yesterday, and even though the audiologist told me there was little deterioration in my hearing in the last year, she revised my hearing aid settings, and hooked the hearing aids (via wi-fi) to her computer to do the reset. All good. Went to walk out the door, the RHS hearing aid went dead. Went back in and told her, she looked puzzled and hooked them up again, and reset them. Went home, walked in the door, the RHS hearing aid went dead again. Went back to the audiologist (luckily, she's only 10 mins away, the advantages of city living), and she checked it out again, and declared it totally US, and in need of major repair. I'm annoyed because these hearing aids are only 12 mths old! They were a brand new build in Jan 2025. I'm getting a bit sick of the reliability of this Oticon stuff, they seem to pack up regularly. And when they need repair, they need to be sent to the East Coast to do the repairs!! It takes 2 weeks to get them back. FFS!! I live in a major city with a population of 2.3M people! - why can't Oticon have a hearing aid repair centre here in Perth? Then, it gets worse. The hearing aids I have, are a matched pair of "in-the-ear" hearing aids. They "talk" to each other, the button on the RHS one sets the programmes (there are 3 programmes in them), and adjusts the volume up, while the button on the LHS one adjusts the volume down, and also changes the programmes. As soon as you lose the RHS hearing aid, you lose the ability to raise the volume up. So they lend me a "loan" hearing aid. But the loan hearing aid is a "behind the ear" type of hearing aid. It's not anywhere near as powerful as my originals, and it has no compatibility with the LHS in-the-ear hearing aid. So it's like driving a car with 14" highway tyres on one side, and 18" off-road tyres on the other side, it makes life quite difficult! Meantimes, SWMBO has had to go in for a skin cancer op this morning. She's not happy, the doc insists on cutting a big chunk off the top of her ear and has to do a skin graft to repair it. She hates being cut up at the best of times, and the Skin Check WA doc (a woman) is a tiger on cutting bits out of you at every opportunity. So now she's got a fortnight of restricted activity and recovery, while her ear heals up. Hopefully, this afternoon, things will start looking up, when I fit the new coil to Barneys mower and get that operational again. Meantimes, my Chamberlain tractor engine repair is a struggle, I'm having serious levels of trouble getting the Perkins 6 cyl engine apart for reconditioning, it's really dragging out. The engine was full of water, and the pistons were all rusted into the cylinders. I soaked the bores in a 50-50 mixture of diesel and ATF for over a month, a highly recommended cure for engine corrosion, and it has worked to a certain degree. But every piston is fighting all the way to be removed from those cylinders. I've got 4 out so far, and 2 more to go. What is making it harder is, I can't turn the crankshaft, so I'm going to have to pull the crankshaft out now, so I can get proper access to the underside of the two remaining pistons, to drive them out. And I found the crankshaft has already been ground .030" undersize, and I'm not sure if .040" undersize bearings are available. I hope I don't have to go looking for another crankshaft. One upside is, I found a bloke from Parkes, NSW, on FB, who had two NOS Perkins 6 cyl engine overhaul kits for sale, for $900 each. He delivered one to Perth for me in that price, so that is a big saving on buying a new engine O/H kit, they are close on $1500 to buy new, now. Jerry, I trust your bad luck run ends soon, and you find a top-condition used car for a bargain price. I love deceased estates, the relatives nearly always sell off a mint-condition car that the deceased person bought not long before they died, and you usually acquire a bargain in a private sale. I got SWMBO's Camry that way in 2014, the owner was a WW2 tail-gunner in a Halifax, he lived to 91, and bought the car new when he was 88! Accordingly, it had seen little use (13,000kms), and his son was wealthy, and just wanted to quit it. We got it for $19K, when it was listed everywhere as being worth $23K. What was worse, after we bought it, SWMBO spotted a handwritten note the son had, where he'd listed $18K as the likely car sale price! But he was a really nice bloke, so we didn't mind paying him the extra $1K! 😄

He's got good reason to look a bit ragged, he's 89!

Pretti was obviously a bit feral, and obsessed with attacking ICE agents. He was carrying a (legally obtained and legally allowed) firearm at all times, but was never seen to withdraw it from its holster. You'd have to be a bit demented to carry a firearm when attacking Federal agents, anyway - let alone just attacking them physically. Once you start attacking people during a protest, it weakens your protest case. But in the final washup, shooting a protester simply because he's being abusive and attacking you, is not warranted - and I hope the case goes to court, with the ICE agent charged with manslaughter at the very least. But I'll wager it'll never happen.

It's interesting to see, that if that US$38 trillion is a correct figure, then that is 143% of America's GDP.

Interestingly, the levels of Govt debt are excessive in many developed countries (as well as the well-known undeveloped ones). America's debt level, measured by debt-to-GDP ratio is 125%. The U.K. stands at 115%, while France stands at 101%. However, Japans debt-to-GDP ratio is 230% It is the most indebted country in the world. But .... drilling down into the figures, the debt owed by America, the U.K. and France, is to many and varied global lenders - including other countries. However, the largest proportion of Japans debt is to its own banks. They don't owe a huge amount to overseas investors. So the problem is, when global investors start withdrawing support for your country and your Govt, by moving their funds elsewhere, the amount of overseas debt your country owes is going to be the major item affecting whether your countrys economy goes into a slump - or into the sh****r. Japan can conveniently ignore a lot of its debt because their lenders are their own people and institutions. At worst, in Japan, when debt repayments fail to be made, the worst that can happen is few Japanese banks go bust, or are forced to amalgamate - and their economy slows down. That's what happened in the 1997 Japanese/Asian recession, which was largely caused by excessive property price increases - a property bubble - however poor Japanese Govt decisions also led to the economic collapse.

Major global investors are fleeing from investing in the U.S. dollar, thanks to Trumps erratic and inflation-causing trade policies. Those major global investors are countries as well as financial institutions. They are all concerned that Trumps policies will lead to the U.S. dollar losing its place as the premium financial investment choice. Trump is doing nothing to address America's constantly-ballooning Govt debt level - as with all U.S. Presidents and senators, they continue to keep kicking the can down the road. Sooner, rather than later, they will run out of road to kick the can down.

It is good that NO2 have decreased, and EV's are certainly playing their part. However, constantly tightening emissions regulations for IC engines must also be adding to the effect. Electric trains and electric buses and a huge upsurge in solar panel and wind turbine power generation can also be added to the picture, all of which are eliminating NO2 emissions. There has been a substantial decrease in the demand for fossil fuels, which is making the oil producers scramble for market share. This will place downwards pressure on oil prices and slow down the uptake of EV's.

No it's not. Diesels are the main source of NO2, that's why AdBlue was introduced.

SWMBO wants to know, exactly what destination you plan to send your wife to, with this book??

The world needs more Mark Carneys. Luckily he's taken over from Trudeau, who wouldn't have the intestinal fortitude to tell Trump to shove his trade and allies policies where the sun doesn't shine.

It's been a while since anything positive was posted in this thread - so to counter the negativity, here's some party photos! SWMBO and I went to a friends party (Christie, and she was 50) on Sat 17th. It was held at a local bowling club and we all had a good time - despite the fact I rarely go to parties now. Christie is a senior ER nurse, she's got a lovely nature. She laid on some great finger food, she had a DJ with some great 80's music, and there was dancing and good general fun. One of the most amusing parts of the evening was, Christie hired a portable photo booth for the evening and it came with a pile of props, and everyone had a ball with it! Christie is the girl in the blue, off-the-shoulder dress, and her daughter Molly (20) is in the white dress with the black images on it. Her younger brother Sam is in all black, and hubby Gary is wearing the check shirt. The images start at the bottom, where setup and testing the day before, produced some interesting "test" imagery, mostly involving Gary and Molly. See if you can spot OT and SWMBO, we're halfway down the images, posing with Christie, and I've got my best Elton John shades on. https://gallery.glowbooth.com.au/view/e85ec5e4-2f3e-4634-a126-076cff8346cd?

When I mentioned to SWMBO that a woman invented the windscreen wiper, she retorted - "That'd be right! Always doing the cleaning!!" 😄

In 1906, this chatty little handbook was released. It was called "The Woman and the Car". In the book, advice was given to women who chose to drive a car (gasp!), to .... 1. Carry a revolver, carry a small mirror for seeing behind them, for summoning help, and to also carry some chocolate (yes!) 2. The book also advised bringing hairpins, a pair of clean gloves, an extra handkerchief, a clean veil, and a powder puff for neatening up at the destination! I notice that there was no advice to wear goggles, which were pretty necessary for driving in 1906 due to a lack of proper windscreens, and very dusty unsealed roads. In incidental motoring news, a woman actually invented the first windscreen wiper!

It won't. Trump and his MAGA employees and MAGA adherents are psychopathic and perpetual liars. They will continue to lie bare-faced, and present completely alternate "facts" about events, even when faced with sworn judicial evidence. Everyone is crooked, but them.

If lightning hits a dead tree, it will still travel down the tree to the ground (on the outside of the trunk), but it likely won't make the tree explode because of an inadequate level of sap in it. The reason trees explode when struck by lightning, is because the sap is superheated to steam instantaneously. The normal level of volatile eucalyptus oil naturally in the air, is at too low a level to be ignited by lightning. However, in a fire, heated trees close to the fire front can release large amounts of volatile oils that further exacerbates the fire strength. There is a known feature of bushfires, termed "a crown fire". A crown fire occurs in front of the main fire front, and is driven by strong winds, which send the fire front through the treetops, aided by the high level of volatile oils at the treetop level.

This is a piece of hilarious AI video work, on the part of a Danish woman, poking fun at Trumps grab for Greenland .... https://www.facebook.com/reel/2090905211646100

I can just hear the Tassie ukuleles from here on the Left coast!! 😄