Litespeed

Anyone think of the potential problems a truck sized nuclear container has? A very very juicy target for bad actors ie terrorists or foreign armies. Is it likely? who knows but we spend billions on things that have very low impact but seem scary.

Never let facts get in the way of belief.................. Until your smashed in the face by the hammer of reality.

Nice rock work. We always seem to forget that building big is a very old idea. Just using simple maths, levers, bearings and gravity. Seeing how they did the massive cathedrals, is also interesting. A master mason was a very special job and prestigious.

If you want to find a scientist (a purported one) getting in the bandwagon of making money...... Bjorn Lomberg is your man.

The big problems still exist. These reactors do not yet exist and are at last 9 years away.

That's a peak doggy moment. Its all good, next will be cavier for Xavier the poodle.

I think you will find the price is a smallish donation to your favourite politician and their party. Followed by expectations of great returns on purchase. Networking among the well connected folk provides easy bounty.

Send in the army to track and shoot every feral animal. We spend huge billions giving them deadly force, about time to use it to our benefit. Also the best possible training to defend our actual country not fight in offensive overseas missions. We should have this as part of normal mission and training. Any feral horse or camel or goat or cattle or buffalo farmer cum exporter your time is up. Either farm them in a controlled area you own or f..k off. The environment pays the price for the ferals not the harvester/ exporter. A fully funded long term indigenous ranger program that does not get played as a budget saving or football would help immensely. A actual real account of species and their level of endangerment would help. Govt priorities and funding cuts seem to make the problem disappear. Three simple things, none hard nor very expensive. If you say we can't afford it, you need to learn actual economics.

Very common in the day to capture a 'prize' and it would either be sold and shares were to crew, captain and navy. Or they kept it and renamed it. Some ships changed hands many times. The Patrick O Brien series of 24? Books are like a true history and very detailed. Some might remember the movie Master and Commander.

The works of Patrick Obrien will suffice. Maybe some Hornblower.

Spot on Willy, That's why I am giving up land life and joining the Pirate life. Later in the year, we launch our first Voyage, suitable females may apply. Already have crew of grey beards. "Beatings will continue until morale improves"

But they are just tiny battling quiet Australians. Just getting on with sucking the public purse for private benefit. Its their DNA, any changes will be marketing not real action. Gotta love that poor downtrodden rowing club in Mosman on Sydney Harbour. They got $500,000 for their loyalty. Some got big chunks to develop a foyer to attract weddings etc for profit. LNP , the best corruption bang for your buck.

Yep, Making lots of noise is the only thing they seem to understand.

Here is a latest design from a big Euro firm for a cruising catamaran and has all the fruit, wide hulls, heavy and the battery pack could be a lot bigger. Needs a few extra Teslas chopped up. It also would benefit greatly from wind turbines for much better range.

Here is a example of the latest in Solar boats and does not have sails at all. It is built to travel the world completely energy from the sun in wind,sun rays and even hydrogen to store excess power plus batteries. This is a old racing cat that is brilliantly re purposed. Nothing is more expensive than a old racing cat like this new but dirt cheap when no longer competitive. Sure its on the Wow and expensive end but the tech works and when combined with a set of sails and a hybrid drive diesel- that would rarely if ever be needed, range for days even in the rain.

Even in the 1990's it was still a track, I used to sidecar monkey there. All open fields for miles. Now just ticky tacky boxes.

OME, That would be the Swedish hybrid sub that snuck up on the US fleet in exercises and said " bang" you are all dead. The Yanks are very unimpressed. If you can sneak up on a highly protected fleet with sub's hunting you, you are a very deadly hunter. Amazing use of old tech. Love it when Uncle Sam gets a blood nose.

The Sydney solar boat was a very old tech approach and not well designed. Lots of great examples doing well in Europe and a lot less sun than us. You can't expect to throw any design at the solar problem . it must be efficient.

Homebuilt esky is the best, mine has 50 mm sides, a sealing lid and even a waterproof circle hatch in top from a boat. The hatch is awesome. You can access a beer without letting cold out or splashed water in. Sealed up a easy 80-100 kg of buoyancy. Unsealed and open with water approx 20 kg. More than enough for support. Also big ropes around outside to hang on to easily. Add a closed foam cushion and that works like a lifevest as well. Mind you I always have a proper vest on anyway. Worst case.....cold beer, food and a huge stash hole for fish. Mind you...I would have to really get Murphy onboard for trouble, the boat is a modified sail/row/power boat. It weighs 75kg but has 400 litres of positive buoyancy. Seats along sides are sealed chambers. I am doing new gunwales and transom for its half century birthday. But will make a version of the Capten collar to stabilise it for a bigger outboard etc. Boats are fun

Goonie bags for safety. I can see the campaign in my mind. You are correct, besides allowing the world "cheap wine and a sailors growth". This Aussie battler is a life saver. Amazing what a simple thing can do when applied to boating. Also does not break when poorly stored. The other big saver is naturally the big beer/fish esky. Hundreds of half drunk Aussies have survived hanging onto a esky. My homemade one will support four holding ropes. It has alloy bubblewrap on the outside and can easily be seen from the air. But always wear sunnies, the reflection is a bitch.

I see a great future in re purposed batteries from such huge power packs. Home power and farm power just add solar/wind. Also absolutely awesome as power on a big cruising yacht. On a big one, all that weight is a bonus. Some euro brands are already doing hybrid boats to great effect. Better ones will power all day on just solar and battery is still mostly charged. All you electric drivers, smash at will, boats love you.

Third world? You lucky lucky barstard. I tried getting the cricket coverage with ABC radio and no chance. Grandstand was playing some crap instead. Just not cricket! You can see Aunty is suffering from funding cuts.

My Charger was very close to a full blown WOG mobile. It was not purple though, But Sunfire yellow. The previous and only other owner was my friends dad a Italian bricklayer, he garaged it every day of its life and only drove on weekends. He decided his son had far too much italian passion and not enough sense to keep it in one piece. So sold it too me. He sure cried when he saw its power pole demise. He had a greek mate with a full blow purple chrysler 360. Bloody aweful machine in every way. Boot held a lot of beer though.

The crash ability of the Charger is legendary. Many have succumbed to its habit if swapping ends in a corner. The Blue Mtns highway patrol was run by a friends dad in the 70s. They got new chargers to replace the fleet. In two weeks all were smashed, they had bugger all ability on wet roads and gravel or coppers going for a fang in the Megalong valley. I discovered this habit myself with a normally fine corner someone had crashed at but left bits of headlight etc plus some drips of oil. The small loss of grip unleashed the pendulum effect and we were headed for a big transformer pole. Fortunately the same instability and excess power allowed me to correct and change direction........ Into a rising embankment on the other side, in the air and smack into a older smaller power pole. All at speed, having used all available thrust to avoid the bigger pole. Talk about Murphy coming to visit. Now as you can imagine things were not looking good as we charged the pole in the air. My twin brother was passenger, two days out of hospital from T boning a car that pulled out on my motorbike he was riding. Amazing how fast the brain works in the situations. I still remember every millisecond of it. We are seemingly the luckiest buggers on planet earth that day. I had a few very close shaves but that was solid gold . As we sailed majestically towards our destiny Dukes of Hazard style, the physics of the universe obliged with a lesson. The pole was struck at about five feet in the air but was hit exactly in line with me the driver. It crashed through, missed the block and hit through the carbs until it slammed into the subframe. Then like the hands of Dog cut/snapped the pole clean through. The subframe acted a bit like a big blade. The screen smashed and corner of bonnet came through like a nasty spike. The pole came down with lines still attached, we landed in long grass on a small farm. The lives live lines landed on the car and in front, I could see the fuel everywhere from shattered carbs. Sparks were flying in front of us. Shitttttt....but as I am alive, luck and not touching anything meant we didn't become toast. The area power went down within a very long seconds? . We opened the doors easy as pie. Calmly got the hell away and waved down traffic if any came to slow for the corner. Naturally first on seen was a pissed off farmer from hearing a loud noise and losing his evening soapy on TV. Followed by the hotshots towtrucks, then cops, ambos firetrucks. It took quite a while for them to believe the guys directing traffic for safety were not the corpses they expected. Only injury sustained was some little bits of glass in my forehead . My twin was unharmed. The universe sure bloody must have helped because you could do that a thousand times and never survive to have a laugh and beer . I still have a photo of the charger the roof had not a scratch. I do not think the charger a great thing in a crash, in fact their are two types of Charger..... Those crashed and those that have not been driven enough for it to make a attempt on your life. That night we just won the galactic lottery, everything that could possibly happen in our favour did. A variation of a tiny thing would have been fatal. I must have a lot more lives than any cat, I would have used at least ninety nine that night same for my twin brother. Bugged if I know how but we had twin superpowers that night. Sorry for the length but unless you read it all you would not believe it.

The Aussie car nostalgia is really perverse at times. We have blokes throwing huge sums at cars that were very ordinary in their time just had so called grunt. They were just hotter up versions of very plain, poorly built Aussie car Jack and Jill could afford in the days of huge protection and duties for a quality Euro performance machine. Euro speed machines like a fast Alfa or Porsche or BMW CSI coupe or SLC Marc were house prices. All great cars and worthy collectables that are valued overseas. But we pay stupid prices for the cars we could afford back then, when back then we wanted the real deal sports euro machine. Such machines in awesome condition are worth far less than a frickin Aussie taxi with a V8. We are a mad bunch or just plain blinkered. The money and hours spent on restored crap is generally the same as a Rare Porsche to make a as new car. That show quality paint costs even more on a rippled from factory and non optional rust Aussie car. I had a 73 Valiant Charger 6 pack in perfect no rust, no dent condition. I thought it was awesome until I drove a bog stock Alfa two litre to blow the carbon out for a lovely lady owner, who understood italian passion for speed. It was night and day in contrast. The real world ability rang rings around the charger and could do it all day and the next. The problem with re living youth with cars is they forget about what was great, good, bad and plain ugly to drive and look at. Penny wise and pound poor fools.