onetrack

Re the gloomy prophecies and predictions for 2025, I personally believe we'll see an upsurge in assassinations of CEO's and other prominent corporate personalities in the near future - such as the assassination of Brian Thompson, the United Healthcare CEO in the U.S. A telling sign is the support for Luigi Mangione's murderous action amongst everyday Americans - and the interesting part is that Mangione came from a good family, and had no prior signs of criminality. He was obviously driven to this dreadful act by an increasing fury of his poor healthcare treatment - and many Americans obviously feel the same way. I can see many CEO's becoming fugitives like Putin, fearful of their safety and lives, especially where their corporate actions are seen as purely motivated by greed and self-interest. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/27/united-healthcare-brian-thompson-poll

Guess who this whiskery old bloke is ....

I doubt very much that the GOP will break apart with Trump antics and demands - there's way too many people in the GOP who will support him, no matter how outrageous he becomes. It's when his proclaimed plans for his new Govt (such as massively-increased tariffs) start to affect the income of his billionaire supporters, that the manure will hit the rotating blades. Musk is an interesting case, because he sucks up to China, and makes a large amount of money from Tesla sales in China. But when Trump wants to kick China in the goolies, Musk will be there telling him, it's a really bad idea. Whether he can convince Trump to drop his anti-China stance will be the $64 question.

The simple fact remains, that the engineers who designed the Comet fuselage had no knowledge or experience of the stresses produced on the hull by pressurising an aircraft. Fracture mechanics were a field yet to be developed in the early 1950's. It was the constant flexing from pressurisation and de-pressurisation that fractured the Comet fuselage - and it took 1,825 cycles of pressurisation and de-pressurisation in the water-filled pressure test tank, using G-ALYU, before the hull fractured, and gave the testers the clues. The knowledge gained in the pressure test tank was reinforced, when the British Navy recovered the fuselage of G-ALYP from the Mediterranean Sea, and the fuselage fractures of G-ALYP were examined. It was determined that the hull fractures around the windows propagated from tiny cracks in manufactured components used around the windows - less than 100 microns in size. The cracks all propagated from bolt and rivet holes, and the tiny cracks around the holes were there when the Comet was manufactured. In previously-manufactured aircraft, the tiny cracks were of no concern - but in the pressurised Comet, they were deadly. As Nev says, the frame of the Comet was of inadequate strength - but the design strength would've been quite adequate for an unpressurised aircraft. De Havilland did do a lot of testing on the Comet, but the testing was disorganised, as regards the order of the testing. The sad part is the Comet could've been a winner for Britain once the problems were sorted - but the Americans at Boeing were studying the Comet problem closely, and made sure the Boeing 707 didn't suffer from the same problem - thus ensuring the Boeing 707 dominated the start of the passenger jet aircraft age. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/de-havilland-comets

Take a chill pil, Nev, you know OME likes to grab a stated view and elaborate on it. But he is largely correct. Hitler may have approved of the book burning and whipped up the anti-Jewish frenzy in Germany in 1933 - but it was GOEBBELS who orchestrated the book burning, manipulating the Nazi-dominated student unions. Goebbels gave a rabid speech at the book burning, Hitler was nowhere to be seen at the bonfire. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/book-burning

It's interesting how everything in our world is dual. This jells with the numerous religions that tell us there's good and evil, sacred and profane, ying and yang, etc. The Asian religions reckon it's all about balance, and this balance is rooted in Nature, and in physics - Newtons Third Law of Motion. Dualism is a theme from the earliest ages of our Universe, and the general belief is that when one force increases, the opposing force will eventually respond. I'm fascinated by the fact that dualism extends to every facet of our existence. We see and read about good and evil at work in physical terms every day - but dualism extends further than that. We have a visible financial system - and a hidden financial system. None of us have any idea of the size of our hidden financial system, nor how it affects our everyday living. It has an effect, I'm convinced of that, and it's not a beneficial effect. The hidden financial system is aided by banking secrecy and powerful, rich people. We have dualism in our information systems. We have truth, and we have the mistruths and misinformation systems, some simply pathetic and see-through - but numerous ones that are carefully crafted and controlled by the rich and powerful. Murdoch and Putin come to mind. The Internet is the home of dualism. It thrives on secrecy and anonymity. It provides us with great and immediate communication and useful knowledge, but it also carries a lot of evil intent, misinformation, criminal activity, and attempts to control. We have leaders who tell us what they can do, and what they will do - but the duality is, they lie to their subjects/constituents constantly, while their decision making is continually corrupted by powerful, secret forces, who don't want to be exposed, and who are out to further their own interests only - at the expense of everyone else. We are facing an age when power and wealth will become even more concentrated than it is now, and with this comes more corruption of decision-making, and poorer outcomes for the average person. Strangely enough, a substantial number of people know that so many of our systems are wrong and perverted, but don't know what to do about it. They seek major change, and vote for people that present themselves as leaders and agents of chance - but as we know, nothing changes, regardless of who is leading the country. I expect at some stage, there will be a gathering of like-minded people who are totally fed up with our systems of leadership and decision-making, and they will join up to carry out major revolutionary change. I believe this gathering of like-minded people is the "stone cut without hands" mentioned in the dream of King Nebuchadnezzar in the Book of Daniel in the Bible. I don't know what it will take to generate such a powerful gathering, but increasing distrust and hatred of many countrys deceitful leaders, and the perverting power of the super-rich, will surely gather pace in coming years to create major changes. The starting point must be a fairer taxation system, which is so perverted in favour of the rich today, it's a joke.

Yes, that's got to be an extremely rare reportable news event, Trump actually making a truthful statement.

Oh, yes, just subscribe to my YooToob channel and send me $100 and I'll tell you what is going to happen to change the World enormously! First off, on January 6, 2025, an Orange-tanned clown with fake hair is going to upset the World Order with idiotic decisions and orders, and from then, it will only get worse .....now don't forget to subscribe to me........ 🙂

Elon doesn't need to be President, he has a direct line to the puppet and controls his strings. Money rules the good ol' USA, and the more money you've got, the more you're worshipped, and the more power you have to direct changes in the countrys direction. Trump only admires Elon because he's been able to become the richest man in the world, and Trump really wanted that title, but he's too dumb to reach it.

Pete, the history of Australia is written large in the stories of exceptionally wealthy overseas investors being the only ones with enough money to develop the resources we have here, or to manufacture here. In the early days, it was British money that funded our railways development. Then came the gold boom of the 1890's to WW1, staggering British wealth was invested wholesale in Australian gold mining ventures and sometimes they made a lot of money and sometimes they lost a lot. Of course, they mostly didn't miss what they lost, such was their wealth. The same thing happened again in the 1930's, Claude De Bernales, a W.A. mining entrepreneur, born in London from an American mother and a Basque father, was a masterful promoter of W.A. mining and extracted vast investment sums from overseas investors, that was well-utilised to produce a lot of gold for Australia that helped us avoid even worse Great Depression poverty than we already endured. Insurance is another areas where foreign capital has always ruled in Australia. The global financiers do well out of insuring Australians, and have always done well, be it flood, fire, vehicle, or life insurance. Manufacturing in Australia has long been controlled by British, American and European investment. No car manufacturing of note would have ever taken place here unless the huge wealth of American and British and European car manufacturers was invested in Australia. It's unfortunate that their money has departed Australia in recent years, because when they dismantled their manufacturing investments here, Australia was worse off for it. The important factor is that a local Urea manufacturing plant is being built, and no matter who owns it, we have that facility here at all times, which ensures we can't be held to ransom by Chinese self interest.

Yep, that's the type of beast. Photo below of the one I rode in. Did you go to SVN, or did you stay in Oz. What corps were you in? Jerry, sorry to hear about your nail-in-foot exercise, that's not good. Tetanus is a nasty way to go. You're supposed to get booster shots every 10 years, and even in your old age. Yes, we had a great Christmas Day because SWMBO was greatly pleased when her son John and his wife Cara, and SWMBO's grandson Nate rolled up from the Gold Coast last Friday night. They very rarely come West, they like the GC life too much. They've been running backwards and forwards visiting Cara's two (adult) sons from her previous marriage, (they live just South of Perth), to the Perth Hills where Johns sister lives on 5 acres (2 Ha), and then to see SWMBO and myself in the City. Everyone rocked up here at our place in the City for Christmas lunch - although J, C, and N spent Christmas morning with Cara's sons families. We had a 3 day heatwave from Saturday to Monday (38, 41 and 43°), then a nice cool change for Christmas Day, 23°. We knocked up salads and dips on Christmas morning, I cooked steaks and beaut local fish on the BBQ (fish poached in ally foil), while SWMBO cooked up local squid rings and Shark Bay scallops (we'd previously bought a kilo of cooked Tiger Prawns (NW W.A.), and the final touch was SWMBO's roast potatoes (large handcut chips, actually). She parboils them, dries them, rolls them in olive oil, and roasts them in the oven until the edges are crispy. Just beautiful. There were seven of us for Christmas lunch and about three-quarters of the food and drinks disappeared. No alcohol of note, none of us drink much any more. Soft drinks, juices, tonic and sparkling water. We pulled a pile of crackers, wore all the silly hats (I wore my golden reindeer antlers), Nate wanted to read out all the corny jokes from the crackers, then after lunch we went on a present-opening spree, most of which was for Nates benefit, I think. All in all, a good day, everyone was in a good mood - although SD's company rang her up, and wanted her to sort out a big OH&S problem for them - even though she's supposed to be on leave for more than a week! She got a bit snaky about that issue, this company thinks she's on call 24/7, it's not good enough. I can't see her staying with them, she only started with them early Nov., and she reckons they're a bunch of cowboys.

Well, thank the Good Lord for small mercies, Marty didn't supply photos, or even worse - dash cam video! 😞

Ha ha! It was pretty scary being in the hold on fold down seating, no seatbelts, and the main landing gear is right next to you! I shat myself on landing once when a shower of sparks flew up into the hold from the wheels! Dunno where they came from, but none of the (Yank) crew seemed to be too concerned! And I must apologise, my failing memory has played tricks on me, it was C-123 Provider, not a C-119 Boxcar. Same company, similar aircraft, although the C-123 started off as a heavy haul glider, built by the Chase Aircraft company, and Fairchild got given the job to build the powered C-123, instead of Chase, when Chase were deemed incapable of meeting their military orders. The big Pratt & Whitney R-2800 radials were a joy to listen to, though - although the flames and smoke on startup were a bit of a concern to a 20 yr old!

Grump Old Nasho - No, I think you'll find there's a few forum users (such as myself) that are not pilots. I once studied up to some degree on the theory involved in gaining a PPL, but I was too busy owning and operating a sizeable business to actually go on with getting a PPL, so I had to give it away. But I've had plenty of clients with aircraft, and a former business partner I was in a mining partnership with, owned a Piper Cherokee. A farmer friend owned a Piper Dakota, and I utilised his aircraft to go and pick up urgently-required parts on occasions. Other times I chartered various aircraft (including twins) to inspect distant projects and jobs - and I've joyridden around in a wide variety of aircraft, from Cessnas (182, 207, 172) to the Pipers, as well as numerous choppers, including Robinsons and Jetrangers. Like you, I'm a Nasho and a Vietnam Vet, and I spent some time airborne in Hueys, Chinooks, Caribous, and even a Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar! I'm too old and too deaf to fly now, so I'm just an observer on the sidelines today. Welcome to the forum, and Seasons Greetings as well.

Joe, the original post is 3 years old, and the export of Urea from China has been relaxed, then restricted, then relaxed, a number of times by the Chinese, since 2021. Urea supplies for us as a country are still tight, and it's not a good position to be in, as Urea is a critical chemical for multiple sectors of the economy - especially agriculture. However, an Indian Global Corporation (Perdaman) with a division based in Perth, W.A., is set to build a Urea manufacturing plant at Karratha in W.A., using gas from W.A.'s NW Shelf. They have a 20-year gas supply agreement from Woodside. The financing of the construction of the Urea plant is being done by investors from the UAE (Mudabala Investment Company) and Global Infrastructure Partners, a U.S.-owned major investor. GIP is a division of BlackRock Inc, one of the worlds largest infrastructure investors. Perdaman and their backers are looking at good financial returns from the Urea produced from the Perdaman plant at Karratha, as the majority of the production will be exported. It's a AU$4.5B project, one of the largest projects undertaken in Australia in recent times. However, once the Perdaman Urea Plant is up and running, we can tell the Chinese where to shove their Urea. https://perdaman.com.au/2020/07/01/4-5bn-karratha-urea-project-agrees-epc-terms/ https://www.global-infra.com/ https://www.mubadala.com/en/news/mubadala-invests-in-perdamans-western-australia#:~:text=Mubadala Investment Company (“Mubadala”,fertilizer facilities in the world.

No, unless it's a major emergency, and lives and peoples safety are at stake. As the old saying goes, "Lack of planning on your behalf, doesn't make for an emergency on my behalf".

Not a quickie, but a good chuckle in the link below, detailing a day in the life of a youthful, male owner of a kitted-up Nissan Patrol 4WD. We've all seen him, or come across him. https://www.thebelltowertimes.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-nissan-patrol-driver/

I've often thought about the multiple hundreds of open pit mines in W.A. that could be used for pumped energy storage. Many of these abandoned pits are full of water, and many are 200-500M deep. In addition, they usually have a huge waste material dump adjoining the pit, adding to the height discrepancy between the pit, and the top of the waste dump. Surely, these sites are ideal for pumped hydro? It would generally take little to add a link to the main power grid, to deliver the power generated, as the grid is often within reasonable reach of the open pits.

Seasons Greetings to all the forum members and their families, and I trust the wind and weather conditions change for the better for you, Nev, and the danger of losing your house disappears. I've lost my house in a fire, it is devastating, but at least approaching bushfires give you some time to prepare. In my case, my house burnt to the ground during the day with an electrical fault, and when I wasn't home. But at the end of the day, all material possessions can be replaced, your life and family members lives can't, so keep safe.

In the far-flung regional areas of W.A., the rural powerlines to outlying areas were becoming a major cost burden to Western Power, the local energy supplier and maintainer of the grid. Quite a number of marginal farms suffered from excessive amounts of blackouts due to powerline damage by storms and long waits for crews to arrive to fix the damage. So Western Power decided to pull down those remote powerlines and replace them with on-site, stand-alone power generation facilities. The setup is solar panels, batteries and a backup diesel generator. The arrangement has vastly improved the amount of power available to the farms, and reduced blackouts to a bare minimum for them. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-02/thousands-of-renewable-standalone-power-systems-to-be-rolled-out/101479136

A dog owner in Ukraine thought he'd see how his dog would react, to him being attacked by strangers. The result is not what he expected! https://nevsedoma.com.ua/en/684120-a-dogs-reaction-to-an-attack-by-strangers-on-its-owner.html

I can't handle fiction, I get handed too many fictional stories nearly every day in normal dealings with people. I do like adventure books, especially the exploits of people during wartime. I got given a book titled "Great South Land" by Rob Mundle last Christmas. I was a bit reluctant to start on it, but when I did a few months later, I was quite surprised at how entertaining and informative the book was. It's all about the early seafaring explorers looking for the Great South Land in the 16th and 17th centuries, and how the Dutch seafarers Janzsoon, Hartog and Tasman - and William Dampier - who was a pirate, no less - actually contributed a lot to knowledge about Australia, long before Capt Cook took all the honours and glory for "finding" Australia. Mundle is especially admiring of William Dampier, who was an extremely observant man, who also recorded vast amounts of what he saw and experienced. Dampier recorded in detail, winds, currents, tides, flora and fauna, and also recorded the inhabitants of many places - including NW Australia. He wrote at least two books, but a lot of his journals and written information was lost when his ship at the time, the Roebuck, was lost at Ascension Island, due to worm-eaten planking. Capt James Cook utilised a lot of Dampiers accurately-recorded information, from Dampiers book, "A New Voyage Around the World", to assist in his exploration and claiming of Australia for the British Crown in 1770. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Dampier

But do you have the right size tool to fit that 10mm female socket?

Ooops, I must get a new keyboard, the letters are worn off this one.