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On a positive note, yesterday's election results showed that democracy is not completely dead in the US and that the electoral system works despite huge sums of money being spent and plenty of vicious politicking. That's encouraging. Even so, a lot of the vote was a widespread vote against Trump rather than a vote for the Democrats, even by the democrats themselves. But at least now there's an opportunity to stop the ship from sinking totally. It's going to be a hard road to get things back on track and sort out the many problems, so I hope the new Congress and Senate can show a bit of leadership. They've got three months to get themselves organised, set a sensible and balanced agenda and then implement it. Hopefully the cooler heads can keep things on track and the hotheads under control. There's plenty of potential for it all to come unstuck, but at least they're off to a good start.

Closing the Southern border may have been a success but Trumps reliance on ICE which appears to be run as a total authoritarian outfit by its hierarchy has completely backfired. The only other thing he has been successful at it enriching himself and his family and lowering taxes for all of his billionaire cronies.

Primary Industries and Mining really don't do much to make a Nation economically strong. While both those industries generate income, they only generate service jobs for the rest of the community. Look at teh nations which became great, starting with Britain, then Europe and the USA and now China and India. Greatness came from making stuff from raw materials, not simply providing the raw materials.

Ahhh.. Blame the current bloke for the previous guy's failings. In the current value of money, here is Australia's debt curve... Adjusted for inflation of course.. So, the total debt in today's money has reduced slightly since 2022 not long after Albo had taken over. The graph steadily increases since the previous ALP government, continues during the LNP (we'll excuse the rate of increase over the 2 year COVID period).. Albo gets in and it steadily reduces, with a slight increase but still below the levels he took over. Yep, I agree.. with pollies, it's other people's money. But it clearly isn't Albo's debt - it is the previous guys.. the ones a lot of people think are the safe pair of hands with the economy because that's what the media owners want them to think. He could do his bit to reduce the debt further - property tax gas exports, reduce corporate welfare, etc. But the press don't like that.

Lame duck l'orange.

Jerry, don't forget to take into account that it doesn't matter how big, long or how much weight a truck carries, it's the axle weights that mainly impact the roads, ie: the ground pressure. A tandem axle grouping on a B-Double carries no more weight than the tandem axle grouping on a heavy rigid class truck like the bogey drive tip trucks we see everywhere.

He kept saying "Imagine I'm on the ballot." America did, and said "Up yours."

Trump can VETO everything and probably will. What a silly system they have there. Republicans will ARC up too. There's too much Power to a President. SCARY. Nev

Live a lot better, obviously. WAR is MADNESS. Nev

According to Google, at the moment, from public records, the government is currently committed to around $2bn in spend under AUKUS. Of course, this is from what information is available publicly. But, these contracts will have escape clauses just like that of the French - especially since the US and the UK are under no obligation to deliver anything.. So, yes, it is likely we will lose some as we did with cancelling the French contract.. some $3.5bn in the end.. But even if we are on the hooks for say $10bn, it is still < 3% of the total budget of the program, so I would be happy t cut that cheque to be rid of it. And yes, I still pay tax in Australia.. The last guy setting it up excuses the cost of abandoning it; it doesn't excuse the continual accrual of a white elephant of a project to Australia committing that much money to it. Remember c. $5bn is allocated to uplift US shipbuilding capacity

Aussie F1 legend Alan Jones passes away aged 80.

Which needs to be ditched. Independent review (because the government wouldn't do it) has absolutely slammed it. We need some courage from Albo and the cabinet now.

No tax on tips and overtime expire in December2028 but tax breaks for the rich don't expire. That's not good. Finding waste and fraud in government is a perennial aim of all parties but DOGE was a complete financial and moral failure. What he wanted tariffs to do was punish countries he thought were taking advantage of the USA because he didn't understand how trade worked. By nature, he's pathologically opposed to cooperation for mutual gain.

The only good thing I think Trump has done is stop uncontrolled migration across the border. Everything else has been a disaster for the country and the world.

Our OP Shop has to give an annual report to NSW Fair Trading. It has to be done online, and the required fee paid with plastic. Here's the gripe: The payment of teh fee can be done by credit card. It can also be paid using a debit card, provided it is a Visa debit card. The Op Shop banks with the only bank in town - Bendigo Bank, which is not tied in with Visa. A physical debit card works well for the shop since it can't be used for fraud by anyone associated with the shop. The payment of the annual fee to Fair Trading is the only payment that would require the use of a credit card. The annual fees for a credit card would exceed the fee to Fair Trading. So, in order to pay the fee, one of the members who has a credit card has to be with the Treasurer at the computer in the person's home ( we don't have in the shop because we don't need one) so that person's card can be used and then the Treasurer has to reimburse the person. The job gets done, but how inconvenient? The coming problem for a lot of people is that Banks will not issue personal credit cards to pensioners, but will issue debit cards. It seems that the officials at Treasury, who are in employment so can get a credit card, are not aware of this problem and blithely introduce payment systems that are impossible for amny people to use.

Here is an example of a good use for ChatGPT, and I suppose Calude and the others.

Australia is actually doing alright but you won't see that expressed often here.. Nev

Ball and socket joint

My opinioon, from my experience, but not in road construction, is that it is the geology that makes constructing roads for heavy weights the problem. Over nearly all of the continent, the ground is sedimentary material. Very few places have the surface close to bedrock. That results in great difficulty building a sound base layer upon whihc to build a road. Also, the way we seal the surface of our roads is a compromise between cost and results. That's why we have our roads sealed with bitumen sprayed over gravel. Where the roads are made opf concrete, the failure rate os a lot less, but the cost per kilometre is much more.

Another issue with roads is whether they are built for the allowable load limits. I can only see two choices - build the roads better to take the weight or change regulations to reduce truck weights. Either way has a big economic impact. The inflationary pressure of having lower payload/higher transport costs would be huge. Probably much cheaper to just keep patching the roads we currently have.

This post on a forum did a good job of summing up some botched software updates. He's referring to CCleaner 7, but it could equally apply to others: ' If there’s one genuinely good thing about CCleaner 7, it’s that it now serves as a masterclass case study for product professionals everywhere — on how a trusted, legacy product can lose its way through poor change management. Reading through the forums, you’ll find hundreds of frustrated posts — one user summed it up perfectly: “You should have warned me this wasn’t just another update. You should have told me to save my configuration. You should have let me defer this until I was ready. But you didn’t.” That single paragraph captures everything wrong with Version 7. The release dropped with no clear communication, no migration guidance, and no empathy for long-time users who had built custom cleaning rules, cookie whitelists, and workflows over years. The result? Years of personalization wiped out in one “update.” The interface overhaul might have looked modern on a whiteboard, but it ignored how people actually use CCleaner. Merging the Registry Cleaner into Custom Clean broke functional separation and user intent. The new UI stripped out critical control options, like protecting specific cookies — the kind of tiny but meaningful feature that represented loyalty and trust. And then, as if on cue, a new “Ideas Board” appeared — asking users to submit feature suggestions for the “future of CCleaner.” The irony is almost poetic. You don’t need an idea board when your community is already shouting feedback you refuse to acknowledge. From a product-management lens, CCleaner 7 illustrates several timeless lessons: Communicate before you change: Never disguise a fundamental overhaul as a routine update. Respect user configuration: Data, preferences, and habits are part of the product’s emotional value. Don’t break muscle memory for aesthetics: A sleek UI means nothing if it disrupts daily usability. Empathy beats innovation theater: “Listening to users” means fixing what you broke before asking for new ideas. Ironically, this release has made CCleaner more valuable — not as software, but as a cautionary tale. Every product manager, designer, and QA lead should study Version 7 as a reminder that progress without communication is just chaos with better branding. Maybe the next time someone in a sprint review says “Let’s modernize the experience”, someone will pull up CCleaner 7 and reply, “Let’s also make sure we don’t modernize our users right out of the product.” '

They upped the Max Weight of them some years ago, and I blame that for a lot of the Problems. Nev

Sad. I remember his awesome driving with Colin Bond in theyellow Ignis Alfa GTV in the touring cars. A little 2.5 litre taking it to the big V8s. Trounced everything in its class and often bettered the big boys.

It won't be easy. If you got it wrong you could lose the Lot. I'd like to see who got the Kick Backs on that one. (And the Japanese one). Nev

A polite name for a fart.

He says "he will work with them" IF they behave themselves?? 2 years to go. He might not live that Long. He certainly won't behave in a more rational way. He's a person where "everything is NOT Enough". They won't be installed for a couple of Months, but the results are astounding. Nev

He said that four democrats had already called him after the election - two senators and three congressmen, and there were two more calls waiting. My guess is the actual number of calls was zero.

The thing Australians call a split pin was patented in the USA in 1925. https://patents.google.com/patent/US7413391B2/en This patent seems to be for an upgrade of pre-existing similar items. An earlier patent was granted in in the USA in 1902, and that item is of cruder design. https://patents.google.com/patent/US691730A/en 1902 version 1925 version There have been a number of later patents issued for amendments to this design, but these have been minor tweeks. The wedge-shaped piece or bolt that is/was used to fasten a pedal crank on a bicycle is known from the 1640s The word is of uncertain origin, perhaps a shortened form of cotterel, a dialectal word for "cotter pin or bolt, bracket to hang a pot over a fire" (1560s), itself of uncertain origin. Cotter-pin is attested by 1849. It would seem that the Australian term for the item provides a better description of how the pin is used and effectively differentiates it from the bolt-like thing.

I heard a couple of sound bites of Trump answwering questions after the election. He seemed very subdued, not his usual bombastic self.

Google AI says they're one and the same, generally called split pins in Australia. They use AIMS Industrial Supplies as a reference. The AI also says the Brits call them split pins or split cotter pins, the Americans call them cotter pins, then it goes on to describe a true cotter pin. https://aimsindustrial.com.au/blogs/product-guides/split-pin-cotter-pin-guide

Tocumwal is a great destination for a flying coffee.

In the USA they call split pins cotter pins. Everywhere.

That's why we don't have them. We don't manufacture anything that the majority of consumers want.

Cotter pins are used to hold the carnk to the crank shaft on bicycles. Generally old ones, newer are different.

You're right. He's been a roaring success based on those measures. I was thinking more about what might have been seen as good in terms of his official job, the one he never understood and still doesn't.

The above answers are definitely some of the reason. Also, the UK debt is 96% if GDP and Australia's is around 33%. A small interest rate bump will compound UK's fiscal woes, while a small bump won't have the same marginal impact on Australia's. However, the BoE meet tomorrow and are expected to raise the rate anyway. Note, the UK and Aus inflation rate are about the same, so you can argue the UK have been kicking the can down the road. On the other hand, I am not sure in the current state of the economy, putting up interest rates is necessarily correct, either as energy inflation is probably putting the brakes on spending in other areas.

Are you sure about that.. or are you confusing the them with the Republicans? What are the lot of good thing he has done, exactly.. And what about the lot of ship stuff he has done this time around. I'd be interested in how you square the ledger.

Yes. You can still get solder with tin concentrations between 5% and 70% by weight. The European Union Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive and Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive were adopted in early 2003 and came into effect on July 1, 2006, restricting the inclusion of lead in most consumer electronics sold in the EU, and having a broad effect on consumer electronics sold worldwide. In the US, manufacturers may receive tax benefits by reducing the use of lead-based solder. Etymology The word solder comes from the Middle English word soudur, via Old French solduree and soulder, from the Latin solidare, meaning "to make solid".

It is ironic that discussing politics should not be a taboo activity. I will admit that one has to be very, very diplomatic when discussing the topic with a person you sense has differing views.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1167549079294119

Hollywood has lost another beloved star. Elke Sommer, the German-born actress who became one of 1960s Hollywood’s most recognizable faces in comedies and espionage films, has died at 85. Speaking to the German news outlet Bild, her stepson Sebastian Walther said Sommer died at home in Bel Air, in Los Angeles, on Wednesday, OCtober 28.

Paul Wittgenstein (November 5, 1887 – March 3, 1961) was an Austrian-American concert pianist notable for commissioning new piano concerti for the left hand alone, after his right arm was amputated during World War I. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Wittgenstein

No. It was a Dad joke.

It's an example of the ability to use the English language for wit. I'm glad that you undersrtood it.

There will be huge losses from the AI ponzi scheme. This is probably the start.

See! We ARE multicultural!

When I go into Melbourne the Large Number of Giant trucks is what I notice most. Upping the Allowed weight of them wouldn't help road surfaces, particularly when there is a Lot of rain. Once water gets under a road it's stuffed. Nev

I love old industrial machinery. Today I picked up this old J.S. Richardson drill on marketplace and couldn't resist it for $50. There's way more value than that in the steel, electric motor and other components. Good old drills, made in Sydney in the days when we manufactured stuff and employed Australians. At some stage in it's career it's been converted from a pedestal drill to a wall mount. I already have a big industrial grade pedestal drill, so my first thought with this is to mount it like the second photo I've edited with a flip-around and a cutout. In other words, use the wall mounting plate as a base stand and do a bit of sideways stuff with it. I'll have a good look in the morning and check how that will fit with the gearbox oil level/ fill and drain plugs etc. in that orientation.

I contest number 1. "Cunth" rhymes perfectly with "month". It's what you call a couple of thugs that have just knocked your teeth out.