Dax

I have two, one an Ozito plug in and a cheap battery powered one of ebay. The ozito works well with it's 12inch blade, but the battery one is simply amazing, with what it will cut and i use that for cutting up wood at the house, especially knotted wood which refuses to split. Been looking at a Makita 16inch battery chainsaw, but it's $700 just for the body and have to buy the batteries. Not ready to do that yet and already have a heap of battery powered Makita tools and only 2 batteries, hopefully the prices of batteries will come down over time. Those electric ride on mowers are sure expensive, I have horses, or should say one horse now, which takes care of the grass and provides excellent manure for the gardens.

I remember learning to drive a grader on one of those, trying to get the levers to go into their spots was a big hassle until learnt you have to throw them in or it was like driving a truck with no synchro and by the time I got the lever in place had to reverse and try again. Never really became a grader driver, but could do a reasonable job at levelling. Had a look at one of the new ones down here when they were doing the road across the valley from us and the council foreman is in our gun club. The operator does very little, all GPS and a/c. The easiest one I operated was a Britstand I think, which was a smaller grader and had hydraulics which made it so much easier to control and get a decent level for me.

Don't you have any real shops in your area.🙂

I understand where you're coming from, elitism. It's normal for the classically trained to feel superior to common stage trained musos and no different to the approach of the university educated towards those who have lived a life, not just been educated into it. As for your challenge, have nothing to prove and all you're doing is reinforcing the superiority complex displayed by those thinking because they have a formal education, they are far superior to those whose education comes from real life. You never see those types in working bands, they play structured notation music or just teach and fluff their feathers. Put them into a working band and they wouldn't last 5 minutes and have seen that time and time again when they think because they are classically trained, they can do anything, but they can't play spontaneously. or by ear. Try playing by ear Steely Dan's Aja album, which in my opinion is one of the best fusion rock jazz albums of all time. Played in a band that did the entire album, I was the lead singer and we learnt those songs in one afternoon by listening to the record and played them 2 days later at a private gig that had asked for specific music and Aja was top of the list. Simply beautiful music and our renditions went down really well. Have played every style and genre of music except hard core classical which is unbelievably boring after hearing it once or twice, so quite confident in my ability to fit in. As you doubt that, shows your lack of knowledge in how the real music industry operates. Know hundreds of musos more than capable of just sitting in and being able to pick up the music almost instantly, many do it way better than I can. You've earned your living from regimental training and teaching, we have a saying in the industry, those who can't, teach, those that can, play. All my musical knowledge and ability comes from learning on stage, not a class room or regimented regime, but creatively and spontaneously. There is a big difference between your musical world and mine, what's your experience in playing in a full time working band doing at least 3 gigs a week and sometimes more than 5 a week year in year out, all at different venues, writing music, running a recording studio, creating new music and running a booking agency and band management. We played 14 gigs in 5 days over one xmas period and it nearly killed the band as everyone was so tired, but we did it and made sure we never booked that many again as we have to travel up and down the coast to fit them in. So you've played in rock, country, jazz and blues bands as fill in muso and toured. That's your viewpoint, not mine and you're typically trying to make out your programming is better the my learning in real time. We come from totally different backgrounds in music and from your denial of a real musos ability to walk up and just play in any band and genre, is a sign you have little experience within the popular music industry and how it works. That's what happens every day in bands and recording studios, session musos do it all the time. Most people coming into a studio want to produce their own songs, but have no idea how to structure them so they make sense and are appealing. A session muso/producer can sit down, run through and introduce ideas to help the artist structure the song so it makes sense, draws the audience and adds dynamics to the music. Those that want to stick to their ideas and won't take advise, normally waste their money. Never met a real muso who can't do that, maybe except for classical notation music and the classically trained. But who want's to play that boring ancient stuff, it's nice first time but after that extremely boring. Have a lot of classical albums in my collection, prefer Stravinsky and Wagner to most others as there's interesting dynamics within those scores.

Have yet to come across a piece of music I couldn't pick up and play within a couple of run through's. With respect, your reply shows you have very little knowledge of the popular music industry. Haven't said all trained musicians can't play by ear, there are many who can and they have mostly been in popular bands during their formal training. But have come across heaps who don't have a clue and have tried to play with classically trained musos many times to find they just cant cut it without musical scores to look at. Have a large recording studio, have and still work as a session muso, all I know play by ear and can pick up a song within the first few bars. A professional working musician can play any genre and like myself have a repertoire of well over 500 songs, adding to the list almost daily as we hear music we like or think it would fit in the band. A real working band that's not at the top of the pile doesn't have set repertoire for a gig, but will play what turns the audience on and are willing to play requests not in their repertoire, if they know how it goes. As for making money, within the pro ranks, the mantra is play anywhere, any time and any thing they like and we stick with that. We may play a country music one day, the next rock the next blues,then a gig where we can play originals and the next, out their jazz, or a mixture depending on the audience reactions. Have made a lot of money out of playing music, that's all I'd do if the building and hospitality business wasn't so lucrative. Luckily have a kid who is the same as me in music and building and now runs the show, so once the virus goes away if that happens, will be just music for me and can't wait. Have written and collaborated on many songs over the years, most writers start off with either a line, melody or song heading. When the structure is set up and put down, the creative production begins and from there it gets developed into what the writer wants conceptually. Have written a number of scores for adverts and a couple of short movies, they are easy to do and no notations, we follow the script and develop what we feel fits the scenario. Of course that can take a few minutes or days and when everyone's satisfied with a particular version, that's it. Nothing written down other than sets of chords, today you can load it into a program which will create the score for you, but it can never get the feel coming from the composers. That comes from the heart and not a piece of paper. I carry a note book with me all the time and write down lines and ideas for songs and video albums, have many hundreds of started songs, most don't go anywhere, but some become useful when recording someone else and they are lost at some point, can sometimes drag out the note book and find a line or chord pattern to fit Playing by ear is the only real way you can get the feel the song projects, the vast majority of hit songs, are all created with just chords rhythms and feel that's what attracts people to them. The writer puts their heart into it and that comes out in how they express the music, which others playing that song can grasp the feeling built in and either replicate as in a cover band, or interprets them to make the song their own interpretation. You can't do that with music notation, you have to stick to the score or the band falls apart, but with musical feel, it's easy to pick up. Try being a fill in muso, where you walk up with a band you've never played with, have no idea of their songs, are given the key to a song and off they go. If you can't fit in within the first few bars, you never get another fill in job and I can walk up and play with anyone, even doing their own material which have never heard and no one knows the difference because you have the feel within the first couple of bars and from there it's easy to fill up the empty spaces and enjoy yourself. Did a walk up with Midnight oil in Canberra one night playing bass, their bass player wasn't up to it so filled in for him. Never really listened to their songs and just had a set of chords on a piece of paper stuck to an amp, but we got through the night and they were very happy with me. But must say, can't stand Garret, arrogant piece of cow shit. Play tenor in a contemporary jazz quartet, not the sort of music you'd hear in a pub or many other places, because it is very complicated, but simple and most can't work it out as they miss the subtle but technical aspects which to most sound like a load of garbled notes. But the true muso or musical connoisseur,will sit back and enjoy the depth, variety and tightness of the group.

Not bagging anyone, stating a fact and have played in big bands that read, was in a backing orchestra for the pommie show "carry on comedy", it was a 14 piece and I played bass. They read, I played by ear and it was simple, took one run through to get it right and except for the drummer and pianist who played with in a cabaret jazz rock band, they didn't even know I wasn't reading. There's a huge difference between classically trained musicians and popular music muso's and as for complicated pieces, try some of the modern guitar, sax or keyboard solo's without sheet music and see how you go just by listening to them. Then have a go at some of the contemporary out there jazz compositions which are extremely complicated without a musical score. Have taught lots of people to play guitar, drums and bass, have them playing in a few minutes and playing songs after one lesson just with chord charts and training their ear. I also play tenor sax, keyboards, blues harp and a bit of violin, all by ear. Music is the language of the soul and the universe, it's a natural thing easy to understand and learn by becoming part of it, by experiencing and feeling it within you, not on a cold sheet of music. Music notation was very useful when there was no way of recording it so it needed to have all it's components set out to be played properly. Once the ability to record music came along, that evolution opened the door to people being able to feel the music and replicate it note for note without musical notation. That means they feel the music, not just replicate it and when you feel the music and become part of it, that's when it becomes a creative experience and you don't get that by reading because you have to stick to the notation rather than become the musical expression.

"Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving." In my life experience, a formal education reduces intelligence by a great deal and the more educated the less intelligent most are. Did an IQ test many moons ago and failed miserably, all the questions had to do with having educational knowledge and not common sense, or logic. Had a muso friend who was an mechanical engineering teacher, yet he always brought his car for me to fix because he couldn't work out how to diagnose the problem from the manual and was prepared to spend money on taking it to a garage. Most times I adjusted the points and timing and that was it, yet he taught mechanical engineering and didn't have a clue outside his educated understanding. Same with musicians, many times have had uni educated muso's applying for a gig with us, only to discover they could only play with music sheets. They had no idea what feel timing or rhythm was, unless it was written down in musical notation, making them useless for a country rock band at the time, we learn by ear and nothing else. Then there was the time was working at a uni doing some drainage work and we watched these highly educated professors and students changing a tyre on one of their cars. It was hilarious to watch, especially when they went to put the spare tyre on and it fell over hitting the hubcap and spilling the wheel nuts into a drain, where they had set the hubcap away from where they were working. The drain had water in it and not possible to lift the grate, they were beside themselves, trying to work out who to call to get more wheel nuts or to get a tow truck to take it to a repairer. I walked over in my dirty mud covered shorts and T-shirt and asked if they needed help, to which one replied how can you help with no nuts to secure the wheel. Simply said, take a wheel nut of each wheel and use those to secure the wheel, then you can drive it to where you can get some more nuts, like Repco. The look on their faces said it all, no thank you, just grumbling as they did what was suggested then drove off. Us lowly workers had worked it out instantly using our intelligence, they tried to solve be it using their education and were pissed off at the outcome. See it all the time, intelligence comes from life experience, understanding and pure logical thinking, something most over educated lack in bucket loads. The IQ tests are designed to boost the ego of the elitist over educated, to try to make them look intelligent, but the reality is the opposite when it comes to real life. Have met a few highly educated who are also intelligent, but those are people who decided they needed to learn a bit more for what they were working on.

When there's a body of water between land masses, you can't class them as being part of each other. Ever heard of Bass Strait, you may find it's filled with water and separates Aus from Tas. Geologically, Tas is more a part of Canada and Sth America, than Aus. Most real Tasmanian's would love to secede from Aus, but the pollies prefer to be given money rather than work for it and make our island the envy of the world, which it already is in many ways.

Have always wondered what real intelligence is, it seems the norm is highly programmed in the education system and capable of remembering irrelevant rubbish. Take them out of their comfort zone and they are lost. I call being intelligent those who see a problem situation needing a fix and devise a workable method and the majority of those have little education. Life is the best educator, sadly most kids today never get to experience life outside a school room, urban jungle and Ph screen.

I don't class Tas as backward, when it is free from the virus, has reasonably decent environment, clean air and low crime rates. Compared to the never ending debacle going on in Australia of heavy pollution huge crime rates, disgusting environment, filthy air and wall to wall sardine crammed people. I wouldn't eat Atlantic salmon if you paid me, same with farmed trout, not even the farm workers will eat it and I know lots of them. It takes at least 18kg of caught ocean fish to produce 1kg of farmed salmon and the same with trout they use a huge amount of chemicals and antibiotics to control disease and give a false red colour to the fish where the reality it salmon is light pink in its natural state. The colouring they use is red colour dye No2, which is a known carcinogen and banned in many countries. In Tas it's only the urban clones who eat farmed fish, real Tasmanian's either catch it themselves or get it direct from local fishermen.

Lawrence Hargrave was the first to fly in the late 1880's at Stanwell park, the wright brother used his engine design to build their own and that 3 cylinder rotary was the standard for many years

Ignorance is bliss for some isn't it, electric commercial planes are already flying and development is well advanced. Of course it's in the beginning stages and we may not see big planes for a decade or so, but short haul are already viable and in production. They already are building cars with solar cells in the roof and a solar cell only weighs 8-9grams. There would be no weight problem with solar cells embedded in wings and fuselage and as E planes are mostly carbon fibre, integrating solar cells into the wings and body would be easy. If they added super capacitors into the body, they could charge them whilst on the ground and use their stored power for takeoffs, which is where the majority of energy is used in flight. One plane I've read about had props front and rear of the wing, both are used for takeoff and the front blades fold away during flight. There is already a caravan converted to electric flying round and many others, here's some links for any interested in what we can look forward to in the future. https://www.airbus.com/innovation/zero-emission/electric-flight.html https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200617-the-largest-electric-plane-ever-to-fly https://www.nasa.gov/feature/glenn/2019/nasa-us-industry-aim-to-electrify-commercial-aviation https://www.greenbiz.com/article/6-electric-aviation-companies-watch

This could be the early versions of the next generation of racing planes, which if it follows ice planes, the technology advancement will move to private planes. Have read a bit about the development of electric planes and it seems they are not that far away for short haul commercial flights, but for long haul, it's a long way off. These racing planes, or choppers, will probably result in 2 seater private planes and can;t understand why no one has yet incorporated solar cells in wings and fuselage, as that would dramatically increase range and once above the clouds, unlimited energy. Long haul flights will probably go the hydrogen direction, hydrogen powered cars seem to go a long way on a small amount of hydrogen, one has just completed over 1300klms on a small 6-7kg of hydrogen. "Airspeeder, a flying racing car that can go from 0-62 miles per hour in just 2.8 seconds akin to Formula One racing cars, has had a successful dual test run for the first time. The test flight of two unmanned Airspeeder vehicles, in skies over an undisclosed location near Adelaide, South Australia at the end of September, marks the first time two units have taken to the air together." https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-10084123/Worlds-electric-flying-race-cars-skies-Adelaide.html

Only to those who contribute to political party coffers, mostly big corporations, they are in the minority and there are millions of small/medium businesses who suffer under governments because they are not a political vested interest. This pandemic is a prime example, big business got billions, small business got a sniff, or sweet FA and many have gone broke or are on their way out. When they have got rid of most small business, the people are in for a shock, already the big food providers are throwing out Aus producers and replacing them with in house imported chemicalised junk foods and commodities.

That's true, one of our hospitality venues is not far from another which has pokies, card machines, keno and racing. They have lots of trouble during nights, the police are constantly called even during the day they get a visit a couple of times a week, but they still continue trading and the cops never go inside, they always deal with situations outside. Our venue has no gambling, is quiet and has good custom, but the cops do a walk through of our place almost daily now. Since the management approached the cops to find out why we had the cops coming through our venue when nothing untoward ever happened there, the walk through became almost daily and some days a couple of times a day. Yet the place down the road which has a fight outside most weekend nights and even during some days, never gets walked through I'm told.

Democracy/capitalism, is all about consumption and profit growth and nothing else. So it's logical they will concentrate on the area's of society that will drive consumerism, they never mention the many other aspects of life that would inspire people in other directions. Has anyone noticed the huge increase in gambling advertising this year, it permeates through every sport broadcast and now during prime time TV. Then we have the internet, luckily I don't get any adverts but hear the comments of lots of others saying they are bombarded by gambling spam. They may be people who gamble anyway, but it just shows what our governments think of the people, compared to the rip off industries.

Doubt that, like everywhere else we are to far down the track to turn it all around and he along with lots of other drop kicks who have realised how wrong they were, are part of the problem, over population. The only thing that can save Australia, is to get rid of the political party system and replace it with real people power in the form of online people controlled open government. However even though many may agree in their minds, in practise they will never change, changing direction is something modern humans can't understand, it frightens them to death. Which is and will be the outcome because of that delusional non existent fear.

Check any christian or religious country and you will find they all have massive homeless and poverty stricken people, it goes with the belief, which is all about power and control at any cost to the population. The USA has always had loads of homelessness and poverty. like all religious societies they brag about how loving and caring they are, but the viewable truth is the complete opposite and its the same with all ideologies.

I'd delete it, like all propriety junk it's full of holes and designed to mine your data, they have to make a profit out of every aspect of their operations, otherwise they wouldn't be making such huge profits. The best approach in my opinion is to use firefox or brave, delete google and all other search engines, except for duck duck go, it's the safest and best search engine around and is very fast.

In the early 1970's, the liberal government reduced tariffs down to almost zero and that started the decline of manufacturing and the explosion of junk imports and resource exports. Now we make nothing, import over 80% of all processed foods and over 80% of commodities. Labor contributed by agreeing to privatisation of everything Aus governments owned to increase productivity and output and we all know how that has turned out. Now they are in the process of destroying small business and they are using covid pandemic to speed this process up. By using the insanity of CBD quarantine has ensured small business would be shut down and if they could keep it going for long enough,m just about all small business would go broke. It's interesting that during all the lock downs, the big companies have remained open and corporate hospitality has thrived, whilst small hospitality and tourism has been destroyed. The number of small business gone out of business in our area which has a high tourist turnover is huge, if would be getting close to 90%.

After the millions of klms I've driven in everything from a motorbikes to road trains, there are very few who really know how to drive, especially on dirt roads. Caravan and campervan drivers are terrible, they buy big car, big van and think because they've backed it into their urban drive way they can drive it across the Simpson desert. I drove go carts, stock cars in the bush and learnt how to drive on gravel, sand and dirt tracks pretty fast. Then did an advanced driving course on the Navy, which taught me a lot and later raced bikes and side cars. I see landcruisers as very stable if driven properly especially the all wheel drive ones, which can be testy if you don't have lots of experience on dirt roads. The number of fools you see driving around with the vans unbalanced, of overloaded high roof 4x4 is amazing and many you can pic out as being disasters waiting to happen. Every kid should be taught to drive in school, in all conditions so they learn how to really drive. Rather than now, where all they have to do is steer round a couple of streets, park and then let out on the roads. If you have no ideas how to handle an out of control vehicle, or one that requires the ability to take evasive action, you're in trouble instantly and 99% don't have a clue. Most just panic hit the brakes and that's the end of the road for them. Had one smash in my life, that was cause by a drunk who drove across 4 lanes before hitting my car. Had many occasions where it could have been an accident, but was able to drive out of the situation safely.

The seeds are there, but people are to scared to plant them, help them grow and take some responsibility for them. Hope I can last at least that long, modern medical science has already given us the tools to extend out lives, all we have to do is use them in the right way. Doubt the so called peasants will revolt, although a larger number may vote for independents, or informal, but the depth of ignorance and self centered within the ruling elite, even if only 30% of the people voted they would make some excuse and then try to charge voters with failing to vote. It's like the census, many don't wan to be involved, but they are being charged over $200 a day for failing to lodge their census documents or making a mistake. It shows we are getting closer and closer to a totalitarian police state and even our cops are becoming unreliable and more USA in their approach. Having talked to a couple of young cops in the last few months, they are clueless and only into the prestige and power being a cop gives them. Really think it's gone beyond the point of no return, unless the people of Aus revolt at the next election, just dig your grave and hop in, it's going to be a horrific journey into the future.

Took Perrottet a member of the very conservative Opus Dei took less than a day to show his true colours, he sacked the head of his department who's an atheist and replaced him with one of his own religious nutters Michael Coutts-Trotter a jesuit, convicted heroin importer dealer and husband of federal Labor front bencher Tanya Plibersek. Don't reckon he will last long, he's already stumbling over simple things and is expecting his god to guide his decisions. The changes he will make will probably fracture the public service and and lead to more dissent from the people.

Russia was controlled by the the bolsheviks running on Lenins bizarre interpretation of Marxism and they used the orthodox church to carry out their plans, that's why it survived until today. Putin and all his henchmen are devout orthodox christians, they are no different to any other religious nutter. Same with Cuba, supposed communism there is also heavily influenced by the catholic church. However their version of catholicism, is combined with another belief system from Africa.

That does really destroy your immune system, had a taste of that back in the 1970's, reckon if had gone through the entire treatment, wouldn't be here today, it was horrific and probably why my system is struggling now.