onetrack

Pete - There were no oars - and the strict instructions from the crew were NEVER to hang any body part (or anything else, for that matter), over the side of the boat!

I was once marooned and left drifting in a large billabong full of giant crocodiles, thanks to TWO outboards that BOTH refused to run!! (look up Corroboree Billabong). The primary outboard failed to start, then the backup outboard failed to start as well! We drifted for a good half hour before another boat came to our rescue! Meantimes, we sat and watched as two 4.7M crocs devoured a water buffalo!

Ford Model A's all used steel wire spoke wheels. The first 2 years of production (1927-29), they were 21" wire wheels, the second 2 years of production (1929-31), they were 19" wire wheels. Get us a photo, Spacey, so we can ID the car.

All recycling requires huge energy inputs to produce the end product, which makes the recycling largely uneconomic. However, a recent development utilising a molybdenum catalyst may reduce that energy input requirement. The system under study still requires heat input however, which is still a major cost. Perhaps solar-sourced heat will be the answer. https://www.thebrighterside.news/post/new-technology-uses-air-moisture-to-quickly-recycle-plastics-with-94-efficiency/

Poland, at the forefront of Russian expansion dreams, has just ramped up its military spending to 4.3% of GDP. They are leading the EU nations into self re-armament, now rapidly concluding that relying on America for military support and hardware, as they have done in the past, is no longer a viable option. https://www.chathamhouse.org/2024/07/poland-could-be-europes-rising-star-defence-and-security

Re the U.S. Subs - we urgently need to re-assess this dreadful purchase. It's a mind-boggling cost, with no guarantee they'll be delivered - ever - and trying to equip submarines with crews is a costly and difficult task. But we have the modern answer to subs - and it blows U.S. Nuclear subs out of the water, so to speak. And the answer is an Australian invention! - the Ghost Shark autonomous submarine! This thing has a massive depth ability increase over regular subs, and no need to risk any crew lives to operate it! Regular subs will become obsolete in the near future, exactly as tanks have become obsolete, due to the massive advances in drones and guided munitions. https://www.eurasiantimes.com/australias-silent-predator-ghost-shark-xl-uuv-a-game-changer/

And the wood would dry out in the wooden-spoked wheels and shrink, and make the wheel wobble! Then you had to buy special wedges to hammer under the ends of the spokes, to tighten them up!

And they were dreadful cross-ply tyres! - with zero handling traits, they'd pull you all over the road under braking effort (that's if you had brakes that worked reasonably effectively) - and they had inner tubes that created friction and heat, which shortened their already short life! I used Michelin radials from the early 1960's, they were a godsend to high-speed country motoring. But you had to keep the pressures up in them, to reduce wall sag, or you'd get sidewall stakes with sharp rocks, especially on freshly graded roads. And aftermarket PBR VH-series vacuum-operated brake boosters, were the answer to go-faster drum brakes. Plus - sealed roads were few and far between, and most sealed roads were narrow, necessitating pulling off onto the gravel shoulder to pass oncoming traffic - which was very light, on most roads.

Androphobia is a fear of men, Spacey, not quite what you're describing you've endured. I had some bullies of teachers in primary school, they would be called child abusers today.

The problem with the "smashed car" analogy that GON uses, is that Donald Trump is not actually fixing the car - he's dismantling it, to smash it further, to ensure it never goes back on the road again. Trump is driven by vindictiveness and spitefulness, and nothing else. He has no plan for making America "great" again, but he has a plan to ensure that he dominates the world, and bullies anyone who opposes him in his plan. He belittles any nation or leader that speaks against him, and has installed his loyal followers in important positions, based on their loyalty to him, and nothing else - while he decries DEI as installing incompetents, in important leadership roles. But his ego is so outsized, he can be easily and simply manipulated by other cunning dictators. I reckon he's the original Manchurian Candidate.

Whoa!! - Metric?? That rotten simplified measurement system invented by the FRENCH?? It can't be any good, because it wasn't invented in America!

Bruce, wasn't that the basis of all the old Scottish/English charitable/benevolent care organisations and groups, such as the Ancient Order of Foresters, Buffaloes, Masons, etc, etc? The Order of St John is the oldest sick care organisation in the world, it started during the Crusades in the 11th century.

Is that really you, Donald? Surely you aren't planning on taking on the global pharmaceutical companies and the medical instrument/equipment suppliers??

Being adaptable to vastly changed circumstances in jobs, industries and occupations, is all part of our life paths, and many people re-train more than once during their lifetimes. I have changed occupations multiple times, and had to learn new skills each time. Most of the changes were forced on me, I just rolled with the punches, and kept going. I've bordered on "technical bankruptcy" a couple of times, and been quite wealthy at other times. The only constants in life, are change, death, and taxes.

Timor Leste just sounds like a 3rd world sh**hole country, so good enough reason to keep them out, according to the MAGA doctrine.

Queue.

There's nothing quite like American arrogance. Australia doesn't rate too highly for invasion, as the Chinese already own everything they want here, anyway. But Taiwan has the worlds most technologically-advanced computer-chip manufacturing, and 5 of the worlds leading, cutting-edge, computer-chip factories. That's what the Chinese REALLY want - and the Americans will stop them from getting it. So on that basis, Australia is only useful as a base for operations, same as WW2.

I could spend 30 minutes trying to work this out, and still not find the answer!

It's gotta be another old bloke who acted in Westerns, 50 or 60 years ago.

Australian manufacturing wasn't "stopped", it was over-run and soundly beaten, cost-wise, by low-cost, large-production output Asian manufacturers, particularly the Chinese. When was the last time you bought an Australian-made product from Bunnings - at a high price - in favour of the dirt-cheap Chinese one? That's right, you did the same as every other Australian, you went for the cheapest crap you could buy. Where is the car made that you drive, and why did you buy it, instead of an Australian-built one??

Ian Verrender writes very good articles, and his latest article on the ABC News website, points out what a scam the last AU-U.S. Free Trade agreement was. But Trump has torn that agreement up without the slightest consultation or discussion with us, so we're free to do as we please now, to advance Australia's interests, over and above the U.S.'s interests, every day of the week, from here on in. Let's start with an entry fee for every American Serviceman entering Australia. We could call it a "Trump Tariff" entry fee. After all, we go to other countries (Bali and Turkey come to mind, straight up) and we get slugged an entry fee - why not an entry fee on American troops entering Australia? After all, they're only coming here to look after Americas interests, not Australias interests! https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-16/verrender-us-free-trade-analysis/105053766

Here's my take on the Amazon scams; 1. Amazon is run by the biggest scammer around, Jeff Bezos is a bigger scammer than Zuckerberg, and that's saying something. I cancelled my Amazon account due to Amazon's sleazy tricks, such as signing you up to their Amazon Prime membership, when you didn't even agree to it! 2. My phone holds no personal information that useful to scammers or thieves. I keep no bank details on it, no passwords, no addresses. If I give someone my personal details to facilitate a deal, or pay for something, I delete the SMS after the deal is done. I refuse to use my phone as a "payment device". They're basically a very insecure system. 3. I don't do surveys - not even for big, well-known companies. All surveys are scams, designed to get your personal information and data. 4. I don't scan barcodes unless I know the company and know their reputation. I'm certainly not going to scan any random barcode that comes in the mail or in a parcel. 5. I'm wary of any social media promotions, I treat all Tik-Tok videos as scams, and even if they aren't outright scams, 99.9% of Tik-Tok videos are worthless, time-wasting crap. 6. Despite my belief in being internet-savvy, I still get scammed a couple of times a year. I got scammed last week, buying parts online. Here's how it worked. I learnt that a good Taiwanese company. "HJL Autoparts", sells quality timing chains for Nissan engines. I found their website offering good deals on their timing chains, so I bought one - using PayPal and my credit card. As I went to finalise payment, I noted a millisecond flash of a website redirect at the bottom of the page. Uh-oh, this doesn't look good. Oh - Did I mention I got a 2 factor SMS with a code from PayPal for my scam transaction, too!? So I go to PayPal and I see a payment has been made to some Olive Oil Company in the U.S. I check up on that company and it's defunct. So I try to reverse the PayPal transaction, and PayPal tells me I can't reverse the transaction until it's been processed!! WTF??? PayPal are the biggest scammers aid as well!! So I have to wait a couple of days for the transaction to be processed by PayPal, and only then can I start the payment reversal process with PayPal. But when I start the reversal process, I'm given a choice of "ticks" for the reasons for reversing the transaction. Surprise, Surprise! There's no "fraud" or "scam" choice in the reasons for reversing the transaction!! I can only tick, "item not delivered" and nothing else that comes anywhere near the reason for reversing the process. Fortunately, the "item not delivered" did complete the process and I got the payment returned to my CC. But now, the scammers have all my PayPal details and CC details and phone number, so no doubt they've been sold to other scammers on the blackmarket - so now I have to be doubly alert to PayPal scam SMS's and false delivery scam SMS's and Credit Card fraud warning scams ..... sigh......... Only LATER, do I find the GENUINE "HJL Autoparts" - and all the warnings about the fake "HJL Autoparts" website - which copies the genuine site, EXACTLY - except for an additional "S" in the website URL. FAKE WEBSITE - https://www.hjlautopartss.com/ GENUINE WEBSITE - https://www.hjlautoparts.com/ The bottom line is, you can trust no-one on the internet until you have done personal verification outside the internet - and not even huge companies like PayPal or Amazon can be trusted. Interestingly, I've reported the fake website to Google and it still comes up high in Google searches, thus proving that Google cares little about scams and scam websites.

Interestingly, the W.A. Dept of Agriculture did a study on evaporation levels from farm dams quite a number of years ago. They discovered that greater levels of evaporation occurred on warm windy nights from farm dams, than during the day - and especially where the dam mouth faced the prevailing winds (South-Easterlies in the lower part of W.A.). This was due to the fact that the amount of wind played a larger part in evaporation, than the hot sun during the day. Quite often, hot sunny days here have relatively low levels of wind, and it's the wind that moves the evaporated moisture.

We had a drought between Oct 2023 and May 2024, with virtually zero rain, only a few mm's in that period. Then we had a short but near-average Winter rainfall, with more rain falling in the Northern and Eastern Wheatbelt and adjoining Pastoral areas further North, way above average. The cropping season for W.A. 2024-25 was the 3rd largest on record, despite the season looking dismal at the start. We produced over 20M tonnes of grains, and that makes 4 of the last 5 years for W.A. farmers, as bumper cropping years. But the rain petered out again in early Oct 2024, and we've endured the hottest December, January and February, since the early 1960's. In the Wheatbelt, the December 2024 average temperatures were 3° above average, 4° above average in January, and 1.5° above average in February. We had a big thunderstorm roll in from the North-West on Thursday (13th Mar.) that gave us 13mm in the city, 20mm at Perth Airport and around 25-30mm over many other areas of the State, including the Wheatbelt. Albany and a small area North and NW of Albany, collected a massive downpour as the thunderstorm passed over it, heading South - Albany recorded 126mm for the day, an all-time record rainfall for one day. The rain has refreshed everything, and it definitely feels like Autumn now, with some cool nights. I fully expect we'll have an above-average Winter rainfall, this normally happens after Qld has had huge Summer rains, we get heavy Winter rains as a follow-on. An old farmer told me about this pattern in the mid-1960's, and he'd followed weather patterns for 50 years before I spoke to him. 1974 was when Brisbane had its massive floods and the 1974 Winter here in W.A. was the wettest for decades, it was a wipeout, there were flooded paddocks for weeks.

Marty, I know most of us elders are a little hard of hearing, but you don't have to keep repeating yourself... repeating yourself... repeating yourself!