onetrack

Incidentally, the "Hollywood" lettering on fire photo, is an AI-generated fake photo.

There's an interesting prediction about how the LA fires could contribute to a U.S. economic crisis, along the lines of the GFC in 2008, in the article linked to below. This holds true if the total size of the financial payout sends multiple insurers to the wall, and if property prices in highly-desirable areas crash back to low levels, sparking a mortgage crisis. The thing is, you can get insurance cover for nearly any event - but at what cost? When the premium becomes an unpayable level, there's not a lot of options left. Many people in the LA region will probably go without insurance if they rebuild. Stepdaughter lives in the Perth Hills, on a 5 acre (2Ha) bush block, where bushfire is an every-present major threat. She knows if a bushfire sweeps though her place, everything will probably go. We pay $1000 for home and contents insurance here in the city, she pays $9000 annual premium for her place, with a property value that is only a little more than our house in the city. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fires-california-palisades-fire-homeowners-insurance-state-farm-fair-losses/

The American system of fire protection is all about the "I'm right Jack" system. Notice the billionaire with his private firefighting force, raging on about the public firefighting force funding being cut back. But note also, the number of people pointing out that this same billionaire was always trying to avoid property taxes - which pay for the public firefighting force!! Then there's Trump spouting more BS and misinformation, stating that the water mains supplies were restricted by the California Govt allocating more water to protect endangered species, rather than sending all the water to fight fires. As always, Trump's ranting has no basis in fact, it's all about him gaining more political point scoring utilising a disaster for personal ego gain. He's just a BS artist of the highest order. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-10/water-supplies-ran-dry-los-angeles-when-needed-most/104803994

Sorry, I don't have any sympathy for the "stars" and "celebrities" that are losing, or have lost, their mega-million dollar homes. 1. They are all vastly overpaid for what they do. Let them find a real job that means they have to work 70hrs a week for $10 an hr - as so many working class Americans have to do. 2. They would likely have to be advised which ONE of their mansions burnt down - because most of them have mansions in multiple countries, and multiple mansions in a number of States. 3. They would ALL be fully insured, and are not going to suffer huge financial losses, and have to start all over again from scratch. The people I DO feel great sympathy for, are the poor buggers in Vanuatu, who have bugger all at the best of times, but who managed to scrounge enough building materials, to put a roof over their head - then, the last earthquake reduced that "mansion" they built to rubble - and they have NO insurance, NO Govt assistance, and NO financial reserves - so they have to start again from scratch, to put a just a basic roof over their head again. THESE are the people who deserve our sympathy and support, not overpaid actors and "stars" who have ALL their petty 1st world pathetic problems, taking up reams of print and webpages every day.

On the subject of scams, here's a classic piece of corporate scamming that is typical of the deviousness that has infiltrated every major financial operation in the world. I trust that the influencers win their case, but of course, any major payout will mean little to a global corporation that is so rich, it can afford to pay out on lawsuits won by aggrieved parties, without batting an eyelid. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-09/paypal-sued-by-youtubers-over-honey-extension/104791528

DIY electrical work is listed as a dying occupation!

My very first thought about that electrical box with the circuit breakers, is that it's in Nigeria, and fully approved by the local witchdoctor.

Trumps first Presidency was described as "chaotic" - there's no reason to think his second Presidency will be any different. But a lot of people with agendas have now figured out how easily Trump can be manipulated to suit their agendas. Putin is the leading expert on how to manipulate Trump with flattery, and massaging his ego.

That's interesting, it's the first time I've seen that Peter Yarrow had been suffering from bladder cancer for four years. Nasty disease, and often caused by smoking, surprisingly.

Well Spacey, the answer "can't be done" should've been qualified with the reasons why. The reasons may have been your proposal was electrically unsound, it didn't meet electrical regulations, or it didn't meet council regulations. Any electrical installation that produces more than 24V must be installed by a licenced electrical contractor, even if it's not connected to the grid.

My apologies, I confused Adelaide Bank with BankSA, who were bought up by Westpac.

He's just an arrogant rich prick who thinks he's been elected to run the world by virtue of acquiring the title of the Richest Man in the World. Did you see him trying to arrange for the British politicians he doesn't like, to resign?? He makes Trump look tame by comparison.

Facebook - The Home of Scammers, and also owned by one of the worlds biggest scammers.

That's pretty clever, it caught me out. It's amazing how your brain and eye co-ordinate to readjust things as you expect them to be.

I'm a big user today of customer-owned banks. They are normally former Building Societies that have got a banking licence, and they are generally excellent. I use CFCU (now Community First Bank) and Defence Bank (formerly Defence Force Credit Union), and I do my daily banking with Bendigo, because I'm a shareholder in the local Bendigo Bank branch. Bendigo are generally slightly better overall than the Big Four banks. One of the things that really sh**** me, is the fact that the Big Four have bought up every second small bank around, and they'd buy the whole lot if they could. So people go to the "smaller" banks (such as the Bank of Melbourne or the Bank of Adelaide), thinking they're going to get away from the Big Four - with many not realising that the Big Four own the small bank they've moved to. SWMBO and I have a holiday savings account with ME Bank, which was established by the Australian Council of Trade Unions in 1994, and which started life as Super Member Home Loans. It changed its name to Members Equity Bank in 1999, before eventually shortening this to ME Bank in 2009, and it was fully owned by 26 industry super funds from 2002. However, the industry super funds sold ME Bank to the Bank of Queensland in 2021, saying it had never paid a dividend to shareholders in its entire life. But I'll wager they made good money in selling it to the Bank of Qld.

I've got a better story than that. I bought a good used lathe at a Grays auction in S.A. about 10 years ago. It was bought for my stepdaughters boyfriend, she paid me in cash, and I used my credit card to purchase it - because you need a credit card to buy anything from auction houses. Grays contacted me a week later and told me their operator had dropped the lathe in the process of loading it onto my arranged transport - and it was beyond repair, and they would refund the money. So they refunded my credit card. But I'd already paid the card down, and their refund put the card into credit. So I went to a teller to draw out the surplus cash to return it to my SD - and the bank (it was HSBC) charged me a "cash advance fee" of $25!! - to get my OWN cash out of the account!! I wasn't going into debit with the cash withdrawal, the balance was zero, after the cash withdrawal! So went into HSBC and tore a new one for the teller, and closed the credit card account, telling them I would NEVER deal with HSBC again, as long as I live! - and I haven't. She was quite apologetic and upset when I told her what had happened, and why I was closing the account - but made NO attempt to call any manager, nor did anyone ever offer to refund the (totally illegal) $25 charge. HSBC is the bank that got fined US$1.9B (plus US$665M in civil penalties) in the U.S. courts, for money laundering for Mexican drug cartels - Got fined 57.3 million POUNDS ($73M) for "serious failings" in customers deposit protection in the U.K. - Got fined 6.2 million POUNDS ($7.9M)over treatment of customers in financial difficulty in the U.K. - And, is currently being sued by ASIC for failing to stop Australian HSBC customers accounts being stripped by scammers. My conclusion is that HSBC is amongst the biggest scammers in the world.

Yes, a total lack of competition. I've got a little (6Kva) Kubota genset (GL6000 Lowboy) for single phase, and for running small tools. It's a little pearler, I paid $250 for it at auction, and $250 to get it back to Perth from Karratha. It was powering work caravans, it's a 2019 model, and has done 6,900 hrs. It's an analog model, no electronic interface, which is good, those electronic controls crap themselves regularly. It's just got a starter-heater switch, and the engine is protected by low water and low oil switches. It was sold as "non-operational". When I got it, it had an out-of-service tag on it, saying "possible blown head gasket". I tried starting it, and it kicked over compression and the starter kicked out of engagement. I tried it several more times, and it kept doing the same. So, I suspected a faulty solenoid, thinking it was lacking power to keep the starter pinion engaged. But I installed the new solenoid, and it still did the same thing. So I pulled the starter off and found the pinion fork ("lever" in the book) was made from cheap nylon, and it had worn out completely on one side, and was failing to keep the starter pinion in mesh. I went down to the local scrappers and rummaged though a big cut-open IBC of scrapped starters, and found a couple of likely-looking candidates as a donor for a good pinion lever. The scrapper wanted $20 for the 2 buggered starters, a bit of a ripoff, but I paid it. You can buy new starter levers off AliExpress for about $8, but I didn't want to wait. The starter is a Mitsubishi, and the basic starter fits about 50 models of cars and engines, they just modify the nose for different applications. I pulled apart the first scrapped starter, and the lever was buggered. I pulled apart the second scrap starter, and the lever was perfect - so I installed it in my Kubota starter. I reassembled it all, and the engine fired up second kick over compression, and ran like a dream, producing the full 240V without a problem. So much for their mechanics poor diagnosis. I changed the oil and filters (all supposed to have been done recently, but looked like they hadn't been done for at least 500 hours), pressure-washed the whole unit, and it looks a million dollars and performs faultlessly at all times. It only uses about 1.2 litres of diesel an hour. You can't beat genuine Japanese gensets - the Chinese ones are a real lucky dip, they're a dime a dozen, secondhand - usually suffering from blown engines or fried electrics. I'm looking for a good 3 phase genset now, about 15-20Kva, but they're in high demand, and all bringing good money, so I just have wait for the right one.

I have no power connected to my industrial block in a small country town in W.A. It's only 130kms out of town. But a 3 phase powerline runs past the street corner, only 50M away. However - to try and get the power connected to my block is the biggest rort of all time. I have to submit an extensive plan of what equipment I have, how often it is used, and its location. This is pretty difficult to do, given I don't even have a shed on the block yet. Then I have to submit my power request application, along with a substantial fee - it's $497 just for the application fee, and $1320 for a "small commercial connection". You then get an invoice for the estimated total installation cost, after you've forked out all this money. But if you decide their total installation cost is not economic to proceed with, you forfeit $550 of your fee money. In addition, it can take up to 14 months to get the power connected. It's a bloody joke. Lots of people, myself included, have just bought diesel generators. The only cost is a bit of diesel when the genset is running. If I go away, there's no ongoing monthly costs to be sucked out of my account. https://www.westernpower.com.au/products-services/install-something-new/connect-my-home-or-business/new-business-commercial-connections/small-commercial-connection/#:~:text=Other fees&text=The cost of an electricity,Distribution Low Voltage Connection Scheme.&text=The type of connection provided,a stand-alone power system.

The most interesting part about Nuclear power stations, is that when a failure occurs, NO-ONE can actually physically inspect the core to see what has happened! The scientists can only use instruments and second guess what actually happened in any meltdown. In Chernobyl, it is believed the reactor core melted right through the containment vessel and into the Earth itself - but no-one really has any idea of what happened in there exactly. With Reactor No. 2 at Three Mile Island, it took the operators and scientists FIVE days to even try and get a handle on what happened, and what was likely to result - and even then, there was much uncertainty as to what had actually happened inside the reactor. https://americanhistory.si.edu/tmi/tmi03.htm

Well, that's a pretty dumb set of regulations. What kind of idiocy allowed that system to be introduced into NSW? Energy provider lobbyists hold the most sway over NSW politicians? In W.A., there's nothing to stop you from having a stand-alone solar or battery system, you simply have to request power disconnection from Western Power, our energy supplier. Of course, WP will try and dissuade you from having a stand-alone system, they hate losing customers. https://www.westernpower.com.au/news/myths-about-solar-and-batteries/

To elaborate, Three Mile Island consists of two separate Reactors. The one that had the nuclear meltdown accident in 1979 is Reactor No. 2. Reactor No. 1 continued to operate until 2019, when it was shut down. Constellation Energy owns Reactor No. 1 on Three Mile Island, and says it will cost US$1.6B to bring Reactor No. 1 back on line by 2028. Reactor No. 2 is to be dismantled. The devil is in the detail though. Constellation is seeking a U.S. Govt loan guarantee for the $1.6B, to reduce their borrowing costs. This essentially means taxpayers are on the hook for all the debt, if Constellation go tits up. The proponents of the loan guarantee say that's not right and Constellation is responsible for all the debt. That works fine while Constellation is solvent, but the proponents seem to forget that companies become insolvent every day of the week, and can't even pay their rent or employees wages. Constellation is no different. Then there's the "greenwashing" by MS. The power to be produced by the refurbished Three Mile Island reactor is simply being fed into the grid - it's not going directly and exclusively into MS servers and data processing operations. The deal is simply "creative accounting" to ensure that MS meets its green power targets - on paper. There's a good article about the deal in the linked site below. https://cleantechnica.com/2024/10/04/refurbished-three-mile-island-payment-structure-is-not-quite-what-it-seems/ What makes me leery of the whole deal, is refurbishing a nuclear reactor that was built using 1960's technology and which ran from 1974. That means ALL the infrastructure in the reactor is over 50 years old. The reactor is a "pressurised water" design, same as the 100 other U.S. nuclear reactors. The system is extremely complex and using water in the entire system means constant corrosion problems - even when using stainless steel. Even stainless will start to corrode after 50 years or more - and lots of equipment in the reactor will be made of less durable materials than stainless steel. Concrete starts to decompose and deteriorate after 60 years. The reinforcing in concrete is the major component that starts to corrode, and this reinforcement corrosion is what starts cracking in concrete. https://americanhistory.si.edu/tmi/tmi02.htm#:~:text=Metropolitan Edison%2C a subsidiary of,and continues in operation today. I wouldn't like to see what those 50 year old structural components in the reactor are looking like, after 50+ years of service (and neglect). Companies are notorious for ignoring danger signs in refurbishments, and continuing with them against educated advice. We had an excellent example here in W.A., where a major coal-fired power station was refurbished at massive cost, despite huge levels of corrosion, which kept being discovered, the more they repaired it - and which kept adding to the refurbishment costs. After it was refurbished, the power station only operated for a short time before a boiler exploded, and the Govt mothballed the station. The fiasco (a Liberal Govt one) cost the W.A. taxpayers around $266M - and we still ended up without the extra power station. Govts take advice from "experts", but the "experts" are usually swayed by economic reasons to pursue refurbishments that should never be carried out. https://thewest.com.au/news/australia/botched-power-station-fix-to-cost-taxpayers-250m-ng-ya-274023

Phosphoric acid is a substantial acid ingredient in carbonated drinks, and is by far, the most destructive acid on teeth. I have to confess, I was a Coke addict from a young age, and no-one gave me advice to avoid drinking it. As a result, my teeth suffered severe decay, and I had to have a large number of teeth removed and have dentures fitted, when I was still in my late teens. Even then, no-one told me to stop drinking Coke. I didn't stop drinking it until I was about 40, and I rarely touch carbonated drinks today. You're lucky if you can reach 70 and still have all your teeth, simply because of the level of acidic additives in our food today. Some people simply have good teeth, I don't think our family have good teeth genes. I'm jealous of those who have near-perfect teeth, the young lass who is my dentist, has a perfect stunning set of teeth, she's obviously obsessed with good oral care.

In a somewhat staggering piece of news, Microsoft is launching full-on into AI. They need so much additional computing power, MS is going to invest US$80B (yes, that's BILLION) just this financial year alone (U.S. businesses FY is Jan 1 to Dec 31), to increase the number of AI data centres (worldwide - but half of that expenditure will be in the U.S.), specifically for training AI models and launching AI-based features worldwide. The staggering part about this development, is that this massive upsurge in data processing and AI development, is going to require so much electrical energy, that the U.S. is going to restart the mothballed (in 1997) Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, in 2028 - and MS has contracted to take ALL the energy that the Three Mile Island plant can produce, for the next TWENTY years!! 🤯 https://www.perthnow.com.au/business/microsoft-to-invest-129-billion-in-ai-data-centres-c-17281410

Oh, I forgot to mention - the front axle on the Brush was made of wood, too! Oak, Hickory and Ash featured large in the car's build. To add even more oddity to the design, the engine ran anti-clockwise! This was an idea thought up by the designer, who figured that it was less dangerous for right-handers to crank an engine that ran anti-clockwise. Kickbacks from clockwise-running engines when hand-cranking, often led to broken thumbs, and even broken arms!