willedoo

An exoskeleton for a paraplegic as the technology is now would only be usable for short periods. The biggest problem I see is chafing from the attachment points. The weight has to be taken on whatever straps hold the person in. They'll figure out something better eventually.

In the future life is sure to get a bit easier for some disabled people due to technology evolving. This exoskeleton thing has a lot of potential. They will probably operate a lot smoother and more nimble as time goes by. Then there's the issue of affordability. This clip was previously posted in the Paris Olympics thread.

I didn't really think about it at the time but I think they all were. They probably have a bit of regulation at the school on that issue, like a staff member keeping an eye on them as they leave.

They're certainly cheap enough compared to a genuine Honda. I've heard they're very close copies with a lot of parts interchangeable.

I was asking from the point of view of an engine that was not for critical use such as firefighting and would only see occasional use.

I'm not sure how random this thought is, but for want of a better place to ask, does anybody know how good or bad those cheap Chinese imitation Honda stationary engines are. I think some people call them a Chonda.

I never realised how dangerous to pedestrians electric bikes and scooters are until today. I voted early which was at the local RSL and was walking back down the footpath to my car at the same time all the high school kids were heading home. More than half of the ones who passed me were on ebikes and scooters and they were really putting the speed on. The problem is you can't hear them coming up behind you until what would be too late to avoid a collision if the pedestrian suddenly changed course. The one saving grace is that kids have good reflexes and once a couple of them go flying past, you know to expect more and to make sure you keep walking in a straight line. It's hard to estimate their speed, but it would have been at least 15kph, some a fair bit more. To explain the environment, the footpath is not your normal footpath in town in a heavily built up area. The school is a couple of kilometres out of town and the RSL is at least 500 metres out of town from the nearest houses. There's only the RSL, school, council swimming pool and sporting clubs in that area. The bitumen footpath extends all the way out to the school for the kids to walk or ride home from school. You wouldn't see them speeding like that in the built up area of town for a couple of reasons. One is that they'd get caught doing it and the other is that it wouldn't be safe from their own point of view.

I'd feel a lot safer in one if it had better protection for the feet, like a solid fairing in that lower area.

Sounds like a Texan accent. I wonder if the rifle case is an add on extra or compulsory standard equipment.

I don't think anybody would seriously think of using a skid steer tracked vehicle inside on their polished floors. But then again, it's America we're talking about here.

As is obvious in the video, it's designed for outdoor work.

On the subject of Facebook, they can't have much, if any, real time moderation. I was reading in the news this morning of a case where a man in Indonesia got arrested for selling his 11 month old son on Facebook. The mother was away working and reported the missing child to police when she returned home to find him gone. The father bought two mobile phones and gambled the money from the sale. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-18/selling-babies-remains-a-problem-in-indonesia/104480064

That was a typo, meant to read you've. I just thought I'd get in first before any of yous accuse me of being a bogan.

There's a lot of good stuff on YouTube but YouTube Shorts seems to be a breeding ground for airheads. Alright if you's got ADD I suppose.

Here's a positive bloke that builds tank chairs.

I was mistaken about the old David Brown tractor that's retired in a shed being a 24D. A bit more Googling showed there's a 25 series, not 24 as I misread. The 25D is a diesel and the 25C a petrol/kero engine. Mine is a petrol engine but it has a bench twin seat which appears to make it the earlier Cropmaster. I watched a Youtube video of a couple of Kiwis in the Canterbury region with two Cropmasters. One bloke said he bought one which was a bit of a rick when he bought it, so he bought a second one to rick for parts. When he bought the second one he realised it was too good to rick. He said even though it was only sex months older than his Cropmaster, it had quite a few different parts on it. He took what he could off it to complete his original tractor then sold to the other bloke who brought it back from the did. The video showed both the restored tractors together.

Kamala holding her own against the square headed Fox buffoon:

It's about time. Albo and Co. have done an about face on sending our retiring Abrams tanks to Ukraine. Easy to tell there's an election looming. They're perceived as a weak government and they know they've been below par on Ukraine, so they're probably hoping this will make them look decisive. Call me cynical, but I think our government's support record on Ukraine justifies it. https://breakingdefense.com/2024/10/aussies-arming-ukraine-with-almost-50-abrams-tanks-a-change-in-canberras-plans/

At least I get a bit of good plane spotting here. Since they built the new runway, the changed flight path sometimes takes them straight over the top of my place.

Places like FB are great for small time scammers because there's almost no comeback on them. It's a different story with credit card companies as they get straight on to them. I've only had my card compromised a couple of times and I got a call from the CC company straight away to ask if it was me. They have enough automation to track purchases in real time. If they know you normally reside in Australia and all of a sudden they get a transaction in Europe, it rings alarm bells. The other one that's a red flag is the initial transaction for a dollar or two to see if the card works, then an attempt at a bigger amount. The smart ones go for smaller amounts. The dumb ones try for bigger amounts which can be over your credit limit and that automatically rings an alarm bell.

It's long (about 500 metres) and steep. Over the years a lot of the depth has washed away so I could take ten or twelve truckloads easily if I wanted to get it back to the original levels. I remember when I first bought the block and put a driveway entrance in. I tried getting some road base in but a few feet in from the gate it turned to mush as I worked it. It was the wet season and a spring had broken out just where I'd put the entrance. I had a tractor and rolled in four truckloads of road base just in 15' of driveway before the mush was plugged and firmed up. The next forty metres from there had cap rock underneath so I couldn't side cut into the hill. The only option was to build it up so four truckloads of shot rock boulders from the quarry went into that. I also put in fourteen truckloads of good fill on the rest of the drive that cost me nothing as a friend was digging a dam and wanted to get rid of it. I don't remember how many loads of road base went over the top of it but it was quite a few. Back when I first did the driveway was when I should have concreted it. What would have cost about $25,000 then is probably closer to $200,000 now.

The mutually beneficial situation between me and the house flippers is still working out. I did them a favour today by busting up and removing some waste concrete which will go straight in some holes in my driveway tomorrow when I muster the energy to unload it. Also on the load was a heap of new cyclone rods and some timber. He's ripping up the hotmix driveway in a couple of weeks and said he could get the contractor to dump it at my place. It's about two truckloads so that should fill a few more holes.

I never clicked on the link so I guess if they weren't marketing anything we could put it down as benign spam.

By it's nature, LNG contracts are normally long term. Typical export contracts for gas are in the 20 to 25 year range. If you contract to buy someone's gas for the next twenty years, you would want it at a cheapish price to reflect the contract length. Oil has always been easy to ship and handle so there's a spot market for oil. Because of the required infrastructure for gas handling and storage, there hasn't really been much of a spot market for it until recent times where it's happened on a small scale.

FB don't give two hoots about fraudsters operating on FB Marketplace. A lot of them try for small amounts of $50 or $100 because they know FB don't care, the cops are too busy to bother chasing up small fry like that, and if a bank transfer has been done, the banks don't really care either.