willedoo

I get a lot of mosquitos here and one thing I noticed is that the odourless Mortein spray is nowhere as effective as the regular stuff. It doesn't smell but it also doesn't work.

I'd like to do some reading up on trade routes. I've always wondered whether the extensive fireplace site I saw in SW Qld. was a meeting and trading place for multiple tribes. I'd never seen so many fireplaces before; there were literally hundreds of them long a creek bank. It was a creek system feeding into the large section of Cooper's Creek near Durham Downs. The local tribe was one of the biggest, if not the biggest in Queensland, so it's possible all the tribal sub groups got together as one big mob there to have a bit of a shindig, and the number of fireplaces had built up over the years. It could only be that or a multi tribe meeting place. That was one of the more memorable sites I've seen. You see stuff all the time out there but some stand out and stick in your memory. Another memorable one was the biggest workshop I've seen, also in far SW Qld.. It was a significant site and covered a claypan probably about three acres in size. In that space you couldn't put a foot on the ground anywhere and not stand on stone chips. There was not much stone nearby and no obvious quarries so they must have carted the stone a fair way. For those not familiar with it, a workshop is where they work the stone to make knife blades and spear tips. The stone is very hard duricrust silcrete and clinks like glass when you drop one on another. The broken shards are sharp and can cut you to the bone. They stand around busting rocks until they get the right shape for a tool or spear head, then they work that into the final product. It takes a lot of strikes to get a suitable shaped piece so there's a lot of unusable offcuts left lying on the ground. They quarry the rock by digging it up to get the better quality rock. The surface rock is too weathered and doesn't work well. I think it was about 12,000 years ago they developed stone spear heads instead of using the sharpened point of the timber spear. Another memorable one I came across was a sad one being a massacre site. It was sandy country and I saw a circular low dune which would have been a typical campsite as the bowl shape inside a circular dune provides shelter from the wind in all directions. It was a campsite inside the bowl with fireplaces and grindstones and stone tools lying around. It was difficult to count the skeletons with the passage of time and impact of animals and cattle but there was at least twenty of them, possibly more. I'd say they were taken by surprise as they were all inside the circular dune. Another one I'll never forget was not anything flash, just small and unusual. It was in sand and spinifex country interspersed with rock outcrops south of the Camballin / Mt. Hardman area. The sand was low and undulating and had small boulders sticking out of the ground here and there. One larger rock shaped and sized like a small Eskimo igloo caught my eye. It was about 200 metres off the track so I walked over to have a look. I guess it was about 8' diameter and about 4' high in the centre and was hollow inside. Being curious I thought I'd have a look inside as there was a hole at ground level just big enough to wriggle through. I knelt down and had a peek inside to first check for snakes then lay down and wriggled inside like a goanna. There wasn't enough height to sit up so you had to lie on your back. Lo and behold, the whole inside of the rock feature was covered in artwork. It was nice and cool in there so I guess it was a good place for the artist to escape the heat and whittle a few hours away.

I think there's quite a few words they adopted from the neighbouring fishermen. The first I knew of it was quite a few years ago watching an old lady being interviewed on TV. I can't remember if she was speaking a tribal language or Kriol, but my ears pricked up when I heard her use the word Belanda which was a Malay word (now Bahasa Indonesian) for Dutch people. Apparently it derives from the Portugese word Hollanda for Holland. These days the Indonesians and some top end aboriginals use the word generally for all white people and not just the Dutch. I can't remember the other Indonesian words the old lady used in the TV interview but there were a few. As far as I know, the Macassans had semi-permanent settlements in the coastal area of the Top End. A lot would come and go between there and their base in Macassar but a certain amount would stay and some had Aboriginal wives. There's a beach named Maccassan Beach just south of Yirrkala.

I think the term is used referring to the fact that each tribe had sole ownership of their tribal land and their own tribal law and often a different language, so in effect they were each like a sovereign nation separate from each other with no common laws binding tribes together. That was a big sentence.

Mick Ryan has a new book out, 'The War For Ukraine - Strategy and Adaptation Under Fire'. It's a story that probably still has a long way to go but I wouldn't mind getting a copy. I'm sure it would be an interesting read as his opinions and analysis are always good to read.

According to Ukraine's President Zelensky, their new domestic long range rocket drone was successfully used in combat on Saturday. It only took 18 months to develop and get to the production stage. Most specs of the 'Palianytsia' are classified but they released a video saying it is ground launched and powered by a turbojet. They are saying there are two dozen Russian military airfields within it's range.

I saw a short clip of a bloke in England being interviewed on the street. His comments were amusing: "Being British is all about driving a German car to an Irish themed pub with Belgian beer and then going home buying an Indian takeaway to sit on a Swedish sofa in front of a Japanese television to watch American shows and all the while being suspicious of anything foreign".

Map of the world according to fish.

I've got a model kit of the Endeavour still in the box. It was given to me as a gift in 1995 and I think it was around the $100 mark back then. I see that models the same scale are around $450 these days. I never got to make a start on it; it's sat in the box for almost 30 years.

Our election here in Queensland is in two months time. Going by the polls there's a good chance it might be the next Labor loss. If the LNP get in, it will only be their second term in government in 26 years.

The new chief minister is the first female CLP chief minister and the first Territory born female leader as well as being the youngest chief minister.

Members in the House of Reps are elected every two years, so they have mid term (mid Presidential term) elections as well as at the same time as the Presidential election. Senators are elected for six years but are staggered so one third are up for reelection every two years. In November, the President, all House of Reps members and one third of Senators are up for the vote. Seems a crazy system having elections every two years. They'd all be in permanent election mode. Reading this document, there's not much to envy about the American political system. I think we have a way better system here. https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/our-government/the-legislative-branch/

One of the reasons for giving Biden the shove was that a lot of house and senate members were worried they would lose their seats. If they lost the senate and the presidency it would have been a total strike out for the Democrats.

I often chuck mine into angel gear going down hills. Go downhill on idle instead of revving it's head off.

He can tell many different stories in one sentence. He rarely finishes one before going off on another tangent.

It looks like Labor got the boot in the Territory.

I found out the hard way that it's a good idea to always have the chainsaw tool on your person when cutting. That way if the cutter bar jams at least you can unbolt the saw and save it if the tree is likely to fall. Once I was cutting a tall tree and did everything right. The tree was not far off the point of falling when an unusual gust of wind cropped up and blew the tree back on the cutter bar and jammed it. I didn't have the spanner on me so walked away to get it when I heard the tree going. Looked around to see it falling the correct way, releasing the saw which fell on the ground. Everything was looking promising until the tree hit the deck then bounced to land on the saw. It busted the main chassis on the saw which wasn't cheap.

Joe Biden struggles with walking, but I saw a video of him on his pushbike the other day and he's quite good and strong on it. I think he needs a hand to get on and off it but once he's on there he's a different man.

Now there's another big reason to keep Trump out. Kennedy has jumped ship after Trump offered him a position in his administration. Maybe the idea of Trump's advisors was that RFK jr is so cray it would make Trump look sane in comparison.

Just don't eat any honey while you're in there.

You'd never think to look in your pockets.

Poor old Kamala. 75 days to go and we've forgotten about her already.

That's that disconnect with typing as opposed to handwriting. I'd bet you wouldn't do it if you were writing with pen and paper.

You see a lot of typos on forums that I would guess are caused by people typing on phones or small devices. It's tricky enough on a full sized keyboard.

I've got a bit of peripheral neuropathy that gets into the fingers at times. It can cause some uncommanded movements, the result of which is the mouse hand jumping slightly just as I'm about to click on something. It can be a nuisance.