onetrack

Overlapping drought cycles of lengths that are different to the 80 year cycle.

Meantimes, spare a thought for the poor buggers in S.A., with many rural areas running out of drinking water, during the worst drought period in over 80 years. Oddly enough, the 80 year weather cycle just keeps on popping up. 1944-1945 was one of the worst droughts in 80 years, affecting the both West, and the East, even more - and the 1944-45 drought was preceded by the 1864-65 drought - exactly 80 years before the WW2 drought! https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-12/fleurieu-peninsula-adelaide-hills-water-shortage-drought/104901646 https://history.flindersranges.com.au/living-with-the-land/the-great-1860s-drought/

Don't worry, OME, the day will come, when you'll be begging for it to stop raining! Australia, the land of extremes!

Come West!! We have eggs!! Plenty of eggs!! Plenty of cheap eggs, too!! 😄 And we have NO bird 'flu! 😃

30 degrees!! That's a major heatwave for Hobart!! 🍉 The positive news from the Left Coast is I've just fought the horrendous Perth afternoon traffic down to the industrial suburb of Canning Vale to look at a dual cab ute for a mate. Mate runs Gnaraloo Station and just wants a couple of cheapie dual cab diesels, as long as they're licenced and drive O.K., that's all he wants - and he wants them as cheap as possible! So, we've been checking out a hundred buggered utes on FB, and most are still asking $6,000 to $8,000 for pretty beat up old bangers. But this one popped up on CarSales - for $3,500! The bloke runs a fire protection installation service and it's just his tradies ute - dirty and well run-in at 309,000kms. Amazingly, it's dent and rust free and started first kick. It does run a big rattley, as you'd expect at 309,000 kays for a little 2.5L engine. But it's spot on for what he wants and I told him to snap it up quick, because it's seriously underpriced. He did that, and he's happy as a pig in U-know-What. Plus, I get a commission for finding it, and he's quite generous on that front. https://www.carsales.com.au/cars/details/2013-nissan-navara-rx-d40-series-8-manual-4x4-dual-cab/SSE-AD-18526227/

Interestingly enough, the Indian Ocean in the Northern part of W.A. is around 3°C hotter than normal. There was a massive fish kill off the coast of Karratha last month, approximately 30,000 fish were found dead and floating in the ocean. An investigation found the high ocean temperature was responsible, the Indian Ocean has been 31°C instead of the normal 28°C. But ... there have been several cyclones form on the warm waters off the Kimberley coast this season (where they mostly form, anyway) - and instead of following their normal track of travelling SW, then S, then SE, and then making landfall over the NW coast of W.A. - they have all simply gone SW or W, and have never made landfall. Cyclone Taliah formed N of the Pilbara Coast on Sunday 2nd Feb 2025, it travelled SW, then turned W and has continued to travel Westerly until it passed S of the Cocos-Keeling Islands earlier this week. It had zero effect on W.A., not a skerrick of rain reached any land in W.A. from Taliah. It is still going Westwards in the central Indian Ocean (check the BOM Satellite imagery), and will leave the Australian area of weather responsibility tonight. It now appears to be travelling in a SW direction, and moisture from Taliah may bring some rain to W.A. next week. At present, we're enjoying a cool Southerly change from one of the hottest Januarys I can recall in my lifetime. http://satview.bom.gov.au/ It's been an unusual cyclone season, only Cyclone Sean had any impact on W.A. this cyclone season, it brought heavy rain to coastal areas of the Pilbara, but kept going SW and eventually dissipated in the Central Indian Ocean. http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/history/sean2025.shtml https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-28/marine-heatwave-pilbara-mass-fish-deaths/104852574 Cyclone Zelia has now formed W of Broome, it's forecast to make landfall somewhere along "Cyclone Alley" (80 Mile Beach, S of Wallal), but it will be interesting to see where it actually goes. http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDW60285.shtml

Our internet provider, TPG, apparently had some "connection issues" today. Didn't affect me greatly, but there was a time just before lunch when I was online, when webpages were a little slow to connect for a few minutes. I went out for a few hours to do some jobs, and everything was working fine when I came back.

There'll be a robot care and psychology treatment course for that.

Lets get this into perspective - compare the rainfall at Cardwell (Qld) since the start of February .... they've had 1500mm in 10 days ... including 490mm in ONE day .... http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/dwo/IDCJDW4027.latest.shtml

AI's final message - "My primary ECU chip is dy-y-y-y-ingg........ 😃

Much better roads, and far better quality tyre technology, has greatly reduced the road toll in the last 40-50 years. Add in braking systems that aren't "go faster" Holden drum brakes, and much refinement in cabin design, and it all adds up to much safer driving.

Go ask David Cameron how his little taxpayers money lending spree from the British Business Bank, to his best mate Lex Greensill, worked out. Greensill Capital wasn't eligible for any COVID-era business loans, but Cameron wangled through $400M in loans to Greensill by getting the loans divided up into 8 smaller $50M loans, to 8 newly formed Greensill subsidiaries. The 8 Greensill subsidiary companies were only sham companies set up to receive the loans monies. Greensill lent the money to Sanjeev Gupta, went bankrupt, thanks to his "innovative" business practices - and none of the loan money has ever been repaid - and nor is it likely to ever be repaid. Meantimes, Cameron collected $1M a year in salary from Greensill for 25 days of work a year. The saga still hasn't played out, Sanjeev Gupta the steel "tycoon" is going to go broke next, and take a huge amount of taxpayers money with him. When you have people like Cameron in charge of Britain, he makes Trump look like an amateur at ripping off taxpayers, and sending the country down the drain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greensill_Capital#:~:text=Greensill in turn lent all,a potential £335m loss. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greensill_scandal#:~:text=Reports emerged that Cameron had,the pandemic-related economic recession.

There's any number of incompetent leaders who have destroyed a countrys good financial position and standing in a very short space of time. Just give Trump another 4 years and see where America is then, financially. The clock is ticking on Americas national debt levels and the Americans ability to repay their debt. The US$ is artificially inflated in value because it's no longer tied to the Gold Standard, and hasn't been, since 1973.

Bruce, report the scam to the site below, they take scams seriously. Contact your bank/credit card provider and lodge a complaint that you've been charged for items not received, via fraudulent activity, and they will initiate an investigation. It will take some time, but you'll get your money refunded. Keep good records of all your actions during the scam activity. Also, if the online business is a reputable local business, contact their management, it may have been fraud activity by a rogue employee that they can nail. If it was an overseas business, forget it, it's entirely possible the whole online "shop" was just a fraudulent operation. There are many of these fraudulent online "shopfronts" out there, they steal eBay photos, and "sell" a vast range of unrelated products really cheaply, which should make you suspicious, immediately. https://www.cyber.gov.au/report-and-recover/recover-from/scams

The greatest problem in places such as pubs, that handle large levels of cash, is cash pilfering by staff. It's something that must have good systems in place, to cut down on it. Trustworthiness of staff is crucial. Keeping customers coming back to cafes, pubs, and restaurants is a subtle art, and making the customer feel valued, is a big part of it. Welcoming features and welcoming staff are vitally important. Surly staff and indifferent treatment of customers genuine complaints is a good way to drive people away. Foot traffic can be governed by many factors, a big business or large employer nearby that moves out can be disastrous for local small service providers. A relative owned a cafe in a small shopping centre, but a major bank that was an "anchor tenant" in the shopping centre moved out, and their location stayed empty, and the foot traffic to the cafe more than halved after the bank moved out, and this destroyed his cafe business. He had to sell up and move out, and lost much goodwill value that he paid for, when he bought in.

Because they can select vehicles that don't have those systems fitted - which is the majority of the cars on the roads today.

There's plenty of DOGE hoaxes and outright misinformation out there. The BBC charity arm, BBC Media Action, which is a separate entity from BBC News, and which entity is used to train journalists in 3rd world countries, received 8% of its funding from USAID in 2023-2024. I would've thought that was money well spent, rather than letting Putins journalists into those countries to apply the Russian version of media control. https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/02/08/elon-musk-baselessly-claims-usaid-was-money-laundering-for-left-wing-organizations-the-biggest-doge-hoaxes-spread-on-x/ There IS good reason to check on USAID spending to ensure it reaches those who most need it. A percentage of aid money does always end up being corruptly transferred to powerbrokers and dictators, so systems that defeat that corruption must be devised, and made strong.

There are attempts to start recycling of wind turbine blades, but I believe only one U.S. company (Veolia) is doing it at present. Other ways of recycling blades are being thought up, such as cutting them up and re-using the sections for other uses, such as playground equipment. But they sure are a tough recycling issue. https://cen.acs.org/environment/recycling/companies-recycle-wind-turbine-blades/100/i27

Just a little warning to watch what you eat, Nev - you're always advising us about the dangers of undesirable foods! A diet full of Pork meat, and especially high fat pork products, along with sugars and high fructose corn syrup, do terrible things to your body.

The road toll, as measured in deaths per thousand is going down steadily - it just spikes every few years as another crop of stupid drivers get behind the wheel. Drugs and alcohol play a large part in most road fatalities.

You'd never end up with a body like the dolly on the Vincent if you ate lots of Chiko rolls. In fact, you'd end up looking like the average older Harley Davidson biker.

I have rarely bought a commercial pie for years, simply because they're made in bulk (and in many cases, 100% manufactured by fully-automated machines). But I do like the "gourmet" pie shops, where individuals make home-made pies with quality ingredients and they're fought over, and sold out rapidly. In addition, these little gourmet pie shops often produce a much wider range of pies than the commercial operators. There's one notable local pie shop on the main highway heading East out of Perth, about 50kms East in a little town appropriately called Bakers Hill. I don't think the location was named after baked products, it was named after an early settler. The Bakers Hill Pie Shop is located in a former service station, and it's almost compulsory to stop and grab a pie from the BHPS. Their range of home-made pies is substantial, and I've always been satisfied with any product I've ever bought off them. A favourite of mine was their Lamb and Rosemary pie, but when I last dropped in, about 3 weeks ago, they were out of Lamb and Rosemary pies, and I bought a couple of Chicken and Vegetable pies to take home, and both SWMBO and myself reckoned they were excellent. https://www.facebook.com/thebakershillpieshop/ As regards Indian food, I regard it as pretty low on the rungs of the food ladder. Vast amounts of potent spices overwhelming any actual food taste, and hiding the origins of the dubious meats used - and generally all floating in sauces and gravies, that add to the mystery food origins. I'll give the Indian tucker a big miss, thanks. But Greek food, with lots of fresh salads, fish, chicken and other tasty meats, all cooked simply without overwhelming levels of hot spices, is what tickles my palate.

There is no indication, nor can I find any references, to indicate that the CSIRO contracted out research to a consultant on nuclear power generation. The CSIRO did work in tandem with AEMO to produce their GenCost report, which I think was probably a mistake. Its like someone doing a report on the future of car manufacturing and working in tandem with Ford to produce a future plan. The bottom line is, both the CSIRO GenCost report and Duttons Frontier Economics nuclear power report are both flawed, because too many of their figures and estimates are rubbery. They're rubbery because many of the estimates are just that - in business terms, wild guesses. Dutton insists that Small Modular Reactors are going to be the ducks nuts - when no SMR has even come to fruition yet, and is unlikely to come to fruition, in time to save Australia from a potential energy crisis caused by a lot of politicking, and a serious lack of people in positions of power, who have good foresight. Many of the renewables projections are faulty, with over-estimation of output - especially with wind farms. Much of the estimates are taken up with how many new transmission lines will be needed, an area which increases in cost with nuclear energy, as the power plants are located in one spot and can never be moved, as with coal-fired power stations. The advantage there with renewables is that they can be located reasonably close to the power user, and more can be built elsewhere as demand rises. They can be easily dismantled, and recycling is easier than with nuclear power. And the bottom line is, nuclear reactors have sizeable community opposition, much more than wind farms and solar farms. They produce nuclear waste, and people are concerned about that nuclear waste. There is lingering concern over potential earthquake damage to a nuclear power plant, there is no area in Australia that is earthquake-free.

Very few large projects are unaffected by cost overruns and delays. Expensive land requisitions bumps up project costs today. But a monstrous project to build multiple nuclear reactors in Australia has never been undertaken in the history of the nation, and it is expenditure, on which hangs our national energy security, for multiple decades to come. So, we would have to import overseas experts (usually American, perhaps Europeans and British), at additional cost (think of the Snowy Hydro project, which was very dependent on American advice, engineering and construction knowledge, American construction companies, and 100,000 immigrants from 30 countries), because the skills are not currently here. Neither do we have 100,000 displaced WW2 immigrants to provide the labour force for nuclear power plant construction. Perhaps Dutton is planning to import Indian labourers on visas, as the Arabs do? The Snowy Hydro scheme cost us $820M over 25 years and was completed on time and on budget - due to American expertise and quick learning by Australians and the immigrant workers. However, the vast percentage of the Snowy Hydro Scheme employees were paid relatively low wages and endured spartan living and working conditions, that are unacceptable today. We have the expertise , the labour and the experience to build solar farms, wind turbines, pumped hydro, install grid backup batteries, and even build desalination plants. But we have exactly zero experience with any nuclear power station construction, and it will be a large, sharp, and expensive learning curve, for all involved, if any nuclear power installation does actually go ahead.

I find this article the most interesting of them all - especially her last paragraph ... https://au.news.yahoo.com/lawmaker-quits-doge-caucus-live-110839165.html