nomadpete

I'm not. I hope this doesn't hurt our relationship.

No, 'In god we trust' refers to himself pictured above the text....... except when he is actually jesus playing doctor. I've seen a picture of that, too. On the interwebby thingo.

I like the rest of your post, except for this bit. I think you are not allowing for the rapidly rising number of households that are what you call 'jumping the gun'. My solar and battery do all the smoothing needed for my intermittent solar. It has hardly stopped raining for a fortnight, and my battery dropped down to 80%. That is, nil from the grid in that time. A lot of people (finances permitting) are not waiting for the government to solve the problem.

Did you know that USA is a land of strangeness? Well of course you do. BUT did you know this strange law? From The Britannica:- Presidential $1 Coin Act: This 2005 law outlined the circumstances for creating a series of $1 coins honoring American presidents. The law explicitly stated, “No coin issued…may bear the image of a living former or current President, or of any deceased former President during the 2-year period following the date of the death of that President.” Actually the law dates back to the 1800's. Any of youse bush lawyers care to comment on the Trump coin?

Gee Jerry. Thanks for the update. I think we are in for an interesting rollercoaster ride. My attempt to digest all the implications is like trying to predict what chump is going to say or do next.

My cynical suspicion is the same reason that Australian infrastructure always lags behind the needs of the populace. There are no votes in infrastructure that won't be finished before the next election. Combine that with the desperate attempts to avoid the opposition labelling it "overspending", and winning the next election. This applies to highways, railways, public transport, hospitals, power and water. etc, etc. Maybe also, the public has learned to expect that even after all these years of practice, governments still can't write a decent contract that doesn't allow for endless cost blowouts.

But the current non space bargain basement things are dropping a lot more than a crowbar. The disposable shahed can carry a 90kg thermobaric explosive. War is evil, but once one starts, how the heck can it be stopped without all the killing and destruction?

I remind you that the Brisbane pumped hydo has been running for about 45 years. it has two turbines capable of 600Mw with online ability in seconds. Maintenance costs are a fraction of other generator types as there are no burners, fuel delivery or storage, no waste or boilers or turbines. There must be plenty of other locations suitable for more plant like this. I suspect that Snowy was more of a political than sensible decision.

Some anti war programmes do not use weapons that hurt people. Here is one cheap defence strategy. According to Euromaiden Pess: Italy's Senate is writing a law to guarantee Ukraine a supply of old fishing nets — one of its most practical defenses against Russian drone attacks. I do wonder how they plan to hold these net up?

Something relevant to: ----- UKRAINE ! ------ At last someone in Hungary is supporting Ukraine. Hope they really mean it. Headline reads: 'We cannot ask any country to give up its territory,' Magyar says on Ukraine. https://www.euronews.com/2026/04/13/we-cannot-ask-any-country-to-give-up-its-territory-magyar-says-on-ukraine

BTW, Back in 1968 my apprenticeship was called, "Technician-In-Training". Which made us a whole class of new TITs.

So, it has come to pass. Back in 1968, I was an apprentice TIT. One of a hole bunch of TITs. We watched in awe as our instructor held aloft a beautiful object about the size of an A4 page. It was a maze of fine golden wires in a matrix of tiny ferrite toroid rings. "This" he proclaimed, "is a matrix memory. It holds a thousand bits of data for a computer. It was made last year and today is obsolete. At the present rate of development, in a few years we will see computers so smart that they can develop their own programmes!" So I have seen the original Matrix. It took a bit longer for it all to happen, but it has come to pass. OME, never fear, all those redundant coders will soon be free from enslavement.

Did it start with the number 42, then work back from that?

It works the same way as a steam engine centrifugal governor. Original credit to Mr James Watt. Someone later added bevrl gears at the bottom and repatented it as the Cogswell governor. Now someone took it's balls away and make it out of plastic and bent tin.

I was going to post this pic in another thread that was discussing Vance. But didn't want to get into trouble for being off topic.