red750

Trump on TV this morning announcing the new Trump class battleships they are about to start building - "The biggest and most powerful ever seen - and we're going to build them fast. We need them now, not in a few years." He is going to instruct the ship builders to put all dividends into new shipyard infrastructure, not bonuses and buybacks.

If you haven't read the plaques Trump has placed on the Presidents Honour Wall, read this. Click here.

A high-ranking Russian military officer was killed today in a suspected car bomb explosion in Moscow. Lt-Gen Fanil Sarvarov, 56, was head of the Department of Operational Training of Vladimir Putin's armed forces. The top brass commander was going to work at the Russian defence ministry in his Kia Sorento when it was hit by a massive blast in Yasenevo district. The Russian authorities initially indicated the officer was gravely wounded, but later updated to confirm that he had died. Sarvarov was last year personally promoted by Putin, and was known to have been close to Russia's most senior general, Valery Gerasimov, chief of the defence staff. Rescuers initially found the victim alive but wounded and trapped in the mangled vehicle. There was immediate suspicion of a Ukrainian assassination bid against the high ranking officer. His wife rushed to the scene at the 6:55am explosion but was initially 'not allowed to see her trapped and wounded husband'.

I've been hoping to reach 2000 profiles by the end of the year. 28 to go. I have a number of planes lined up, photos collected and edited, but when I researched details and specs, I found that 7 of them were licence built copies of aircraft already completed. I'm running out of subjects, without going back to more pre WW1 machines, for which there are few photos (maybe grainy old b&w) or details.

I don't think it's sexist, it means mankind, humans.

y son managed to get the front lawn mowed for Christmas before the rain came today. A pretty heavy fall. This photo taken down the neighbour's drive may give some idea of how big the gum tree in his yard is. The video was taken from our back yard. The fence is 6ft high. I don't know how the council would let a gumtree this tall grow in a suburban backyard. 20251221_172930.mp4

Make your concerns known to Minns an Albo. Rules are useless if they can't be enforced.

carrot and donald.mp4

As usual, Melbourne's weather has been all over the place. Sunday was hot, Monday (Men's Shed BBQ heavily overcast and freezing wind. A lazy wind that goes through you rather than around. Wednesday oppressively hot, yesterday humid, today a bit more moderate. There is a side effect. The neighbour has a huge gumtree in his back yard, which if it blew down, would take out the back of our house and the neighbour on the other side. And the photo below shows what happens when it is hot and windy. Bark all over the place.

You may have noticed that over the last 7 days, I have added 27 aircraft profiles in the AP site. I had a few problems with the last one, screwing up the photos and having to do a number of edits to the basic profile. Wherever possible, I include 5 photos on each profile, header and gallery. That may require searching through up to 100 thumbnail images for each aircraft, selecting the best ones to illustrate the aircraft. I try to select different angles and illustrations of features such as cabin access, folding wings, etc. I expand the thumbnail to the full size uploaded to get the best quality image and download that into a folder, one folder for each category - 3 axis, GA single engine, etc. With 1968 profiles completed, and a few more in preparation, that means about 10,000 images. However, a lot of these are far from acceptable. Most are too large, and a few are too small. I standardise all photos to an aspect ratio of 16:9, and a width of 750 pixels. ie., 750x422 pixels in size. This requires resizing and cropping. I am amazed at how badly exposed some photos are, very dark, detail in places like under wing indistinguishable, and if taking off in front of bushes or hedges, the background is a sold block of black. There are often odd items which distract from the image, such as tiedown ropes dropped on the ground, ropes and balustrades around the aircraft which I clone out of the photo. The original image is saved to an Originals subfolder attached to each category folder on my external hard drive. Therefore at least 20,000 images, just for the AP site. Here are a few examples from the last lot. They have been further reduced to 400 pixels wide, originals first, edited second.

GON, hate speech has been outlawed. Be careful what you say.

Correct Marty.

Well done.

Correct.