willedoo

Same here.

Thanks ome, that might be worth a try.

Thanks octave. A mate of mine has an Oppo and is quite happy with it. The problem with Oppo phones for me is that they are quite long screens, about 25mm longer than the size I'm looking for. It's back to the same problem of pocket insecurity.

It's hard to find a good small phone these days. Most of the market is for people who use their phone as computer, TV and sound system hence the trend toward bigger screens. I've been checking out small 5G phones and there's not much available in a small size for an affordable price. The only viable one I could find similar in size to what I have now is the Samsung Galaxy S24. The only catch is it's $1,400 which is way out of my budget for a phone. My only requirements are for calls, sms, the odd photo and using it as an internet mobile hotspot for the laptop. That and a size that can be easily carried around in a pocket while working and not fall out. As far as phones working their way out of your pocket, I don't think it's the width that's the problem but rather the length. The larger screens are on average 20mm longer than my Samsung Galaxy S10e and the old S5 but it's enough to cause the phone to gradually work it's way out of the trouser side pocket. I know this because I bought a Nokia a year ago that was too big and only used it for two or three weeks as it was continually escaping from the pocket. It now lives in a drawer as a backup phone.

You see some silly things on the net. This photo was on one of those clickbait sites where you end up scrolling through photo after photo while being bombarded with the intended advertising. The article was titled '50 hilarious security fails we couldn't make up if we tried -they’re so ridiculous it just becomes funny.' The heading for the photo was '1. Inefficient System - There has to be a better way to secure the gate than using six different locks. If you unlock just one lock, the gate is able to be opened. Whoever designed the system failed big time.' As most would know, they're individual safety lockout locks. Each worker attaches their own lock and removes it when they exit the job. Six locks means six people are inside the plant or machine and it can't be operated until the last lock is removed. It prevents someone starting up a plant or machine and gobbling up some workers who are still inside.

I liked his idea of including dental in Medicare coverage. We're a first world country with bad teeth.

I remember watching the Shorten election count on the TV. At Labor campaign headquarters people were popping the champagne before the polls were closed. Three quarters of an hour later those same people were wandering around in a state of shell shock.

The nbn has different speed levels. The more you pay, the faster it is. This chart is from iiNet nbn and shows typical speeds. On the lowest tier, wireless is 9.3 Mbps download average compared to 12 Mbps with all the fibre types of connection.

That's not too bad compared with what I get. The NBN is 6,8, or 10ish. The phone data with Aldi is 17 to 20 on 4G. The NBN technician who was here the other day said he was getting 5G on his phone at my place. A mate is going to bring his 5G phone over so I can try the download speed as I suspect it might be limited by signal strength. If the speed is worth it, the next step is buy a 5G phone and stick to that.

It's sad to see good companies go bad. I've been with the same server since we first had ADSL. They were Adelaide based, and employed locals with no foreign call centres. They even used to have little old ladies post them a cheque for their monthly plan fees. The customer tech help was done mainly by IT uni students working to pay their way through their uni course. None of those jobs exist any more. It's all hard to understand people from India and the Philippines who struggle to get a grip on the issue. The company doesn't have a very good reputation these days and that started when one of the big mobs bought them out. One thing you learn is that it's pointless harbouring misguided loyalty to any particular company or brand as it's not reciprocated.

Jerry, I'm rural on fixed wireless. FTTN, FTTP, FTTC and HFC in the cities probably don't have as many reliability issues. A mate and his wife just came back from a couple of months in Thailand where they were getting 300Mbps. He was a bit shocked when I told him the NBN fixed wireless delivers 10Mbps at best.

A bit off topic, but I occasionally encounter a bloke in our local shopping centre car park. Every time he has the same old story - he's lost his job and is putting the bite on people for money for groceries. Same story month after month. The first time I thought he might be a druggie or an alcoholic, but after a subsequent encounter I formed the opinion he was neither, just a professional bum who prefers it to working at a job. I've never been dumb enough to give him any money. If you tell him about the free groceries donation bin outside Coles just 50 metres from the patch he works, he thanks you for telling him. Naturally he doesn't go over there; he heads straight to the next potential sucker he spots in the car park to put the bite on them. It's a steady income he's after, not food. Good luck to him.

Still no joy from the NBN. I'm trying an upgraded phone plan for the month to see how that goes. $49 per month gets me a 5G enabled plan of 120GB of data with unlimited rollover, unlimited phone calls and SMS in Australia and 20 other countries, and seemingly no problems. I had 30GB of rollover data from my old phone plan so started the month with 150GB of data up my sleeve for $49. It's plenty fast enough and virtually 100% reliable. On the other hand, my usual server charges me $50 per month for an unreliable 100GB slow speed, no rollover, sometimes connection with the added bonus of customer service via overseas call centres manned by people extremely difficult to understand and who seem to delight in jerking customers chains. Observing them trying to resolve an issue reminds me of Winnie the Pooh and Piglet following their own footprints around and around in the snow. The choice is rapidly becoming a no brainer. If the NBN and the server can't combine to fix it in the next week or so, I'll ring them up and tell them to come and get their junk off my roof.

I saw some video a while back of the Ukrainians floating captured Russian tanks and other heavy equipment back to Ukraine. They seem fairly well organised. In Soviet times, a lot of the tanks were built in Kharkiv. I think the tank plant is still operating there.

spacey, another one that's popular for that is Whatsapp. My sister uses it all the time to video chat to family members who live overseas. I use it without video to ring a mate who has bad mobile phone reception.

Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen said when Trump plays the air accordion, it's a tell tale sign he's lying: “When you see the accordion hands start going, what that means is that he’s lying,” Cohen, who was Trump’s longtime fixer and personal attorney, told CNN’s Jim Acosta on Tuesday. “It’s a tell with Donald. Anytime that the accordion hands start, that means that he’s not telling the truth.”

FB is awful for that side of it. Posts on FB groups are like ADD; they disappear down the whirlpool one after the other, here today, sucked into the abyss and forgotten tomorrow. I've found some older posts by using terms in the search box, but it's difficult to track things down. I think FB is a terrible format for certain things. Maybe it's ok for small single topic niche groups.

I can remember with thread for sewing leather, just using a block of beeswax and running the thread over the block to wax it.

They sell both types, waxed and unwaxed.

Some may already know this tip. If you've had too many hamburgers lately and are popping buttons on the work pants, sew them on with waxed dental floss and you won't have to do it again. Same principle as the waxed thread they use in saddlery and leather sewing.

Another alternative is voluntary donations like the Rec flying site. Then it's a matter of seeing if it's enough to cover costs.

The problem with the FB group I'm a member of is that it's too big. It has thousands of members but probably at least 100 active at any time. It's like having a single thread forum with 100 people posting on it. A smaller, less popular FB group would probably be more user friendly.

I'm all for funding the existing site. It would cost each of us less than a bag of groceries per year. Possibly there's some way of new membership approval to weed out spammers. For that I'd refer to the way FB groups have certain application criteria and waiting periods. The only difference with that is that a member of the public wanting to see what the forum is about can't access it without membership approval. To attract new members there would have to be a site description attractive enough to warrant them going through the approval process. On FB groups it's usually fairly basic - often just a 'tell us about your interests' type of thing. Having said that, most FB groups are very much specific interest groups whereas this forum is a much broader interest platform (how much broader can you get?). I'm a member of a couple of FB groups and personally I think FB is totally unsuitable for what we do here. It's the clunky format that's the problem. The advantage of forums like this is ease of navigation and layout and it can be structured in a much more user friendly way. My vote is a resounding no to FB. I'm a member of a FB ALSE group but only because there's no alternative. We had a Yahoo email group going but Yahoo shut down groups and that disappeared. One of the Brit members started up a forum on his website but that didn't take off for some unknown reason. A Dutch member tried a Teams group but the same story. The Teams format was too clunky. So it was a case of migrate to the FB group by necessity but I wouldn't do it by choice.

That would mean a log 500mm diameter at the base would weigh a bit less than 900kg at 4 metres length. A bit less because of the round profile and tapering of the log.

Crikey, how do you compete with that. I was about to post how great it was to find half a drum of steel offcuts I thought I'd lost, but after reading Litespeed's story, I'll just go back and hide in my shed.